Party of Five
by mystica88
Summary: A Sequel to Close Encounters of Three Kinds and Two Many Doctors. Extrem insanity... Crossover of Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Dr. Who, House M.D., and CSI. Yup, it's gonna be insane and huge.
1. Doctor Who

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of these characters; I just like to put them to my own uses.

A/N: Hey everyone. I probably have taken a step off the deep end with this one. This is a sequel to both Close Encounters of Three Kinds and Too Many Doctors. The first being an X-files, Stargate SG-1, CSI crossover. The second being a Dr. Who, House M.D. crossover. So now I'm taking these two events and smashing all of them together, minus X-files, plus Stargate Atlantis. Needless to say, in order to push so many different stories together, they are all in some type of AU universe.

Things you should know… The Doctor is the 9th incarnation (just because he's my fav). Stargate is after season 8 but Jack is still a General (and there is no such thing as Mitchell and Vala). CSI is pretty much in its current season. In fact, for anyone who has read Close Encounters, I'd like to think that that story is the off camera events that led to Grissom and Sara hooking up. Atlantis is after Misbegotten (second eppie of season three). And House is post season 2, pre season 3.

I realize this has all been about as clear as mud, but I hope you are able to follow it. Please don't hesitate to send your questions, comment, and reviews. Hopefully I can clarify as I go along.

**Chapter 1**

**Doctor Who**

"Rose?" the Doctor called. He hadn't seen her in a while. They had been flying through the Time Vortex aimlessly for a while now and she had disappeared somewhere within the TARDIS for the last hour or so. The Doctor was used to her disappearing to explore his ship from time to time, but she usually would pop back up after only a short time of absence. She was incredibly curious, but she was still nervous around so much high tech stuff that she didn't understand.

"Rose, where are you?" he called again as he walked down the corridors. He was beginning to get nervous. Why hadn't she answered him?

"In here," he heard her call back. Something didn't sound right about her voice and the Doctor hurried towards her call.

"Rose?" he said as he entered the room where she was. She was sitting on the floor, looking rather confused and disoriented. "What happened?" He asked as he quickly covered the space between them, coming to a kneel beside her.

"I'm… I'm not sure," she answered. "I was just looking around when suddenly I became dizzy and the room began to spin. I sat down to keep from falling, but I think that I must have passed out. I woke up a minute ago when I heard you calling and found myself here," she said.

The Doctor was quite concerned as he reached his hand to her forehead. It was definitely warm to the touch and her eyes seemed to be slightly glazed over. "Are you still dizzy?" he asked.

"A bit."

"Ok Rose, let's get you to the medical bay," he said as he reached to help her up.

She nodded and started to climb to her feet when suddenly the whole room seemed to lurch again. She fell heavily into his arms, unable to keep the room from spinning.

He held her tight as he lowered her once again to the floor. Once he had her sitting again, he pulled her from his chest and looked down at her. Her eyes were rolling back into her head as she slipped from consciousness once again.

"Rose! Rose stay with me!" he called to her, but she only slipped further out of it as her body began to convulse in his arms. He held her tightly, trying to will her seizure to stop. He was on the verge of panic as she continued to be racked by the convolutions. Distantly he could hear himself muttering things into her ear, trying to connect with her, trying to reassure both her and himself that everything was going to be alright.

After a few moments, the seizure slowed and finally ended. He pulled her away from him once again and laid her out on the floor, checking her pulse and breathing. Her heart was still frantically beating after the traumatic episode but her breathing was very shallow, much too shallow for his liking. He quickly picked her up from the floor and carried her to the medical bay.

As he went, he began to hate himself for not having learned very much in his centuries of life about human physiology. It struck him suddenly how his title was The Doctor, but he really knew nothing about medicine as it pertained to humans. With his own people, he had some basic knowledge, but being that he was the last of his kind that really didn't seem very helpful.

How do you treat someone with only one heart? What was normal for a human? What was he supposed to do? These questions flooded his brain as he brought her into the medical bay and placed her upon one of the beds.

He was The Doctor, and he had no idea how to heal her…

Luckily, his ship at least knew how to keep her alive. As he placed her on the bed and stepped back, the screen behind the bed began to glow, keeping a reading of her vitals. Of course he didn't really know what was good for her and what was bad, but at least it appeared that she wasn't dying. If she was, the indicators would be sounding an alarm.

He watched as an air mask lowered from above and settled over her face, helping her to breathe more deeply. It seemed to him that her heart was still too fast, but what did he know? Perhaps when there was just one heart it had to beat faster than someone with two.

He stared down at her nervously for a while, not sure what he was to do. True, his ship would know how to keep her alive, but what about healing her? She was still unconscious and obviously wasn't breathing properly. Her face was now covered in sweat as a fever began to climb. He noticed that her body temperature had jumped a degree since he had brought her in. He may not know much about the human body, but he knew that that was not good.

The Doctor began to pace… he always thought better while pacing.

_I need help. That much I know. It's going to have to be someone that is well versed in human physiology. But all of the more advanced human doctors are more used to dealing with human hybrids, not pure blood humans. It's going to have to be someone from close to her own time, but that is still a rather archaic time for medicine. Who from that time could I trust? Do I even know anyone with medical training from that time?_

Then he paused in his pacing as a thought struck him. _Of course I do. That doctor who helped me out with that Glerth a while back. What was his name? Holmes… Home… House! That's it, House. He seemed to be a fairly intelligent guy, if a little abrasive._

The Doctor looked back to Rose who still lay unconscious on the medical bed. He made up his mind right then, he was going to bring her to Doctor House. Hopefully he would be able to help her.

He sighed and took one last long look at his companion before he quickly left the room to man the TARDIS controls. He needed to get to New Jersey at around year 2006, Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital…


	2. House MD

A/N: Oh! I completely forgot… I must send out special props to my Beta, Cybrokat. She's the reason that you can actually understand what it is I'm writing. All hail the awesome Cybrokat!

**House M.D.**

It was early… Too early for him to be anywhere near Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. House walked into the hospital on a mission. Somehow Cuddy had convinced him that he and his team had to go to a week long medical conference in Las Vegas. Though Vegas sounded like a great time, the medical conference didn't.

His team had already left on an earlier flight and should actually be arriving there shortly. _His_ flight was in a few hours but, thanks to airlines being the way they are now, he should have probably been on his way to the airport by now. But, when he woke up this morning, he realized he had forgotten a very important item in his office. He couldn't possibly be expected to ride on a plane for three hours and then sit through a week's worth of boring conferences without his trusty Gameboy.

As he entered the hospital, he pulled his Vicodin from his jacket pocket and popped one. A little pre-fix for all the stress that he was going to go through when he got to the airport. He continued on his mission as he thought over the circumstances of this conference. Cuddy, at the time, seemed to be very professional about it. She had been quoting proverbs on the need to never stop learning; how meetings like this were both good to show off their hospital and to learn from others. It all seemed very logical and of course there was the number one reason for him to go, no clinic duty for a week.

But now that he thought about it, Cuddy probably was trying to find a way to get him out of her hair for a while. He had been particularly annoying lately. He hadn't had a new case in almost a month and he was dying of boredom. Of course, he really couldn't see how this conference was going to help him much in that area. Rolling his eyes, he thought again how boring this whole thing was going to be.

He made it up to his office without meeting anyone on the way which was good, that way he could get out of there before someone saw him in so early. It wouldn't do to spoil his image.

Reaching his office, he pulled his keys from his pocket, preparing to unlock the door. As he reached to hang on to the handle with one hand while inserting the key, he realized that the door wasn't locked. The door swung slightly as he grabbed hold of the handle. He knew, that he had locked it the night before, why was in unlocked now?

He peered into the darkened room, wondering what was going on. He couldn't see anyone, but he knew someone was in there. He couldn't say why he knew this, but he was still sure. Rather hesitant, he lingered at the door for a moment. It wasn't all that long ago that he had had an attempt on his life; he knew that he should be more cautious now. But of course his own natural curiosity was about to get the better of him.

After only a slight pause, he boldly opened his office door and walked in. "You know, if it's drugs that you're after, I have my script right here," he said as he pulled his prescriptions pad from his pocket. "And my pills are here," he continued as he pulled out his Vicodin from the other pocket, giving it a shake.

"I have no need for your drugs," a familiar voice said from the darkened area of House's desk. House was sure that it had come from his chair which was faced away from the door.

"Oh, how dramatic. So now is when you spin around and I am completely stunned at who it is I am looking at?" House stated. He knew that voice, but for some reason, he just couldn't quite put a face to it.

"Right," the voice said as the chair spun while whoever it was turned on a small desk lamp, illuminating his face.

There was a pause in the room before House broke it saying, "Well, I hoped that I would never see you again."

"Come on, admit it. You missed me," The Doctor chided with a huge grin that quickly vanished. "Believe it or not, I'm not here to save you this time," he said seriously.

"Good to hear, but if we could cut this reunion short, I'm running late for my flight," he said as he quickly made his way to his desk and grabbed his Gameboy off of it. He turned from The Doctor without a glance back.

The Doctor stood up slowly as he watched House walk to the door. He reached down and picked up House's large tennis ball as he asked casually, "How's Dr. Wilson?"

House froze where he was, back still turned to the Doctor. He listened as the Doctor tossed his ball from hand to hand. "What do you want?" he said darkly.

"Who said I wanted anything, I was only asking how your friend is doing," he answered innocently.

House spun around, glaring at The Doctor. "No, you are attempting to remind me about what happened several months ago when you showed up last. You want something from me so you are reminding me how I owe you… How you saved both my life and Wilson's. Am I right?"

The Doctor sighed, dropping all pretense of normalcy as he sat down on the edge of the desk. He had been trying desperately from keeping his fear and nervousness about Rose from entering this conversation, but House seemed able to disarm him better than any other… besides Rose that is.

House watched him for a moment before saying, "It's Rose, isn't it?" He nodded to himself as he realized that he solved another puzzle. But he couldn't help but allow his features to soften just a touch. During the short time that he had known these two, he was able to see how much they loved each other, even if they couldn't, or wouldn't, see it themselves. He envied them, and almost hated them for it at once. But he understood how much it hurt to see someone you love hurt.

The Doctor nodded slowly as he placed the ball back on the desk and lowered his head into his hands. "I need your help," he mumbled.

"_You_ need _my_ help. Well there's something ironic. The highly advanced alien comes to the lowly human doctor for help."

The Doctor suddenly heaved a frustrated sigh as he shoved himself away from the desk and jumped up. He began to pace as he talked rapidly. "I can't help her. I promised her that I would protect her and I can't! She's sick, possibly dying, and I can't do anything! I'm The Doctor for Christ sake, and I can't even tell what's wrong with her!"

House stood leaning on his cane and listened to his ranting, not reacting in the slightest to the outburst. He was beginning to put together the reason why the Doctor had showed up once again, and was rather intrigued, but he wasn't sure if it was enough yet to keep his interest.

"House, I need you! I don't know anything about human physiology. I can't help her, you can!" He ended his tirade, staring down House, arm thrust out to him. House stood silently and stared back at him, showing not an ounce of emotion as he thought through what he had just heard.

The Doctor slowly lowered his arm as he waited for House to answer him. He didn't care if House refused or not, he was going to get the man to help, no matter what he might have to do. He couldn't fail her and unfortunately, this man was her best chance.

House thought through it all. He was intrigued, but he was going to have to have more information before he would even consider what was being asked of him. He gave one final penetrating stare to the Doctor before he turned once again and made to leave his office.

"Damn it House! I saved your life!"

"And as I recall, I saved yours as well!" He yelled back as he turned once again and came to stand toe to toe with the Doctor. "Don't go pulling that guilt stuff on me, we're even!"

"And as_ I_ recall, I saved your friend's life as well. What is it you humans say, a life for a life? I saved your life, you saved mine… I saved your friend's life, you save mine!"

House glared at the Doctor, knowing that he should feel some amount of guilt to this, but refusing to allow himself anything other than contempt. This man burst into his office and had the audacity to demand things of him while he had other things that he had to do. This was not something that he had to listen to.

And yet…

And yet he felt that he should. There was some twinge of obligation that was irritating the back of his mind. The more he tried to silence that tiny voice, the louder and more instant it became. As he realized that he was losing his fight against himself, he decided to recapture the situation. If he was going to do this, it was going to be on his terms.

"Symptoms?" he asked as he backed away form the Doctor and began to walk out the door again, this time he obviously intended to be followed.

"What?"

"What are her symptoms?" he demanded.

The Doctor was completely taken off guard by what had just happened. Once second he was sure that he was going to have to force this man to help him, the next he found himself practically running to keep up with him as he strolled to the rescue.

He obviously was taking too long to answer because House stopped in the hallway and once again faced him, a new irritation settling in his eyes. "You want my help, you have better keep up. I can't diagnose her without knowing what's wrong. All I have learned so far is that she is sick, and that is a little too vague, even for me. Now I ask again, what are her symptoms?" And he began to move down the hallway once again.

"Fever, dizziness, disorientation, she blacked out once and then a second time which she still hasn't come out of. Her pulse I believe is rapid and breathing shallow."

"You _believe_ her pulse is rapid?" House asked.

"I'm pretty sure it is, but when one has two hearts, they beat much slower. It could just be that her heart has to beat twice as fast as mine, but I'm sure that I haven't felt her pulse race like this before."

"Can I assume that she's in your ship?"

"Yes,"

"And can I assume that you're parked in the same place as last time?"

"Yes."

"Alright; here's the deal. I have to go to a conference in Las Vegas, if you can get me there, I'll help her. But if I miss this conference, there are going to be a lot of questions that I would rather not have to answer. The last time you were here, I had to endure three MRI's, a CT scan, and they threatened to cut me off of the Vicodin after I tried to explain what happened. That is not something I want to go through again."

"I can get you there in a flash," the Doctor began smugly.

"Fine, just so your ship doesn't pull us off on some side adventure, I don't care."

"Trust me, her main concern right now is Rose; nothing else matters."

"Odd, I thought she was _your_ main concern," House said dryly.

"She is. My ship and I are connected, whatever is top for me is top for her," the Doctor explained.

"Sounds kinda kinky…" but his quip fell flat. They walked in silence for a few more paces. It wasn't until they were in the elevator that the Doctor broke the silence.

"You never did answer my question," he said seriously.

"Which was?"

"How is Dr. Wilson?"

House paused for a moment before letting himself share the briefest of sighs. "He's doing better; his bones have nearly completely healed and all of the bruises have vanished. He probably won't have any scares other than the ones from surgery. But he's got pins in his right leg and left arm and that arm will probably never be completely straight again and cause a fair amount of aches and pains." House said deadpan.

"I'm sorry to hear that," The Doctor replied as the elevator doors opened onto the basement.

"That's nothing. That's better than what I deal with on a day to day basis. But what he really has to deal with is the Post Traumatic Stress. He's not himself anymore. He can't stand confined spaces. He gets jumpy when someone gets too close and he's always nervous. Not that I blame him; almost a month of being chained and tortured in a basement by some pain eating alien is enough to get anyone high strung."

"Do you think he'll ever recover?" the Doctor inquired.

House shook his head. "He'll get better, but he wouldn't be human if he was ever able to completely get over it. No one should have to endure what he did. But those who do have to learn how to live with it and make it a part of who they are. I would like to think that he won't become an ass like I did, but I don't want it to make him a bigger whimp than he was."

The Doctor shook his head as they entered the morgue together. "You may not be the world's greatest friend, but you're going to need to help him through this. You're right, no one should have to endure what he did, but those who do need to have a friend to help them discover how to make it a part of their lives."

House didn't respond, he just took the Doctor's words and locked them into his vast bank of knowledge to pull out at a more appropriate time. Right now was not the time to be dwelling on his friends. Right now he had a puzzle to solve, a mystery to be answered… A life to save.


	3. CSI

**CSI**

Chase, Cameron, and Foreman checked into their hotel, the Tangiers, but they were informed that they would not be able to get to their rooms for a while yet.

"Why not?" Chase asked the desk worker.

"I'm not entirely sure, but it has something to do with a police matter," the young dirty blond answered from behind the desk.

"What are we supposed to do now then?" Cameron asked her.

"We apologize for the inconvenience and we will be giving each guest who has been put out by this event one hundred credits to use in our casino. You can leave your luggage with us and we will bring it up to your room as soon as we are able," she said in as cheery a tone as she could. It was obvious that she had been giving this line to mixed reception for a while now.

"We have a conference that we are supposed to be at by noon. Is there anywhere we can get changed and ready for it?" Cameron asked.

You are welcome to use the gym showers and locker rooms. I'm afraid I can't offer anything better."

"That will be fine. Thank you," Foreman told her.

The three left their luggage and walked over to the chairs of the lobby to discuss what had just happened.

"What do you think it is?" Cameron asked.

"Probably some lovers spat or other. Remember, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas… Unless you get caught," Chase said.

"It doesn't really matter what it is. We're here to go to this conference, what's it matter if we get into our room before or after the first day?" Foreman said.

"I suppose you're right," Cameron said. "Do you think we should call House and tell him what's up?"

"Why? It will probably be taken care of before he gets here. And even if it's not, what's the point in telling him ahead of time if there's nothing he can do about it? Knowing him, if he has time to think about it, he'll just go up there and start harassing the police which will only make matters worse," Foreman answered.

"I suppose you're right," Cameron conceded. "But I think I should at least let him know we got here alright," she said as she pulled out her cell phone.

Chase rolled his eyes as Foreman said, "Why? It's not like he cares."

Cameron rolled her eyes back at them and walked away to make her call in private.

"Has she been working with the same man as us? Because I don't think that she has," Chase said to Foreman as she walked away.

"She's just living in denial that the man she's in love with isn't such an ass."

* * *

"Grissom, you're not going to believe this!" Warrick said as Grissom showed up to the crime scene. One room on the third floor of the Tangiers had been caution taped off, signifying the location of the crime.

"What do we got Warrick?" Grissom asked as he crossed the tape. The room seemed relatively in order. There was no sign of struggle or violence it was just a regular hotel room. The luggage was neatly laid out on the luggage rack and it looked as though who ever had the room was in the process of unpacking. The suite case was open and about half of the contents had been removed and hung up. There was a small meal laid out on the table near the entrance, completely untouched. The sound of a shower could be heard running in the next room. But what Warrick seemed to be excited about was the body itself. "Have you ever seen anything like that?" he asked Grissom as the lead approached the body that was sprawled beside the bed.

The body was obviously male, but was incredibly aged. If he was to take a guess at what the age was, it would be somewhere near a hundred. The hair was completely white and there were deep crevasse-like wrinkles covering the skin. It looked as though this person had been mostly dead before they even walked into the room.

"This looks like a pretty obvious case to me," Grissom said. "He died of extreme old age."

"Yeah, but this guy doesn't match the photo ID that was found in his pocket, a Doctor Manuel Harris," Warrick said as he read the name on the ID that he held in an evidence bag. He handed it to Grissom to look at before continuing. "And none of the bell boys, clerks, or the room service guy had seen this man before. But no one can find the other either," Warrick explained.

Grissom was looking at the photo of about a forty year old male who seemed perfectly healthy and was rather good looking. He glanced down at the body and saw an ancient man who had slight signs of good looks in youth. He glanced back and forth between body and photo as the conversation continued.

"There's also this," David said from where he was finishing up his job. He reached down and pulled the sheet that was partly covering the body down to expose the chest. Though the white dress shirt of the victim, you could see five bloody puncture marks.

"The cause of death might not be as simple as you thought," David answered.

Grissom knelt down beside David and looked over the body for a while before he made up his mind about something and stood up, walking away from the body as he pulled out his cell phone.

"Griss, what's up?" Warrick asked.

"Nothing, just remembered that I forgot to make a phone call earlier. I'll be right back," he said as he stepped out of the room again.

Warrick stared after him before turning to David saying, "Did that seem normal to you?"

"No, but when does anything that man does seem normal?"

A little while later, Grissom returned and pulled Warrick aside. "Warrick, I need you to help Catherine on another case she's working. I'll take over here."

"Grissom, I've already been here for over an hour, why are you pulling me from this one?"

"Because I think that you are needed more elsewhere," Grissom answered.

"Griss, what's up with this case? You're acting really strange on this one."

"There is nothing up with it. I am simply distributing manpower where it is needed. Sara is already on her way here and I don't see how we need three of us on this single when Catherine is working a double."

"But why are you and Sara taking over this one when I started it?"

"Because I said so Warrick," Grissom snapped. "That should be enough."

Warrick gave Grissom a long look before he shook his head as he ran his hand through his hair. He gave a frustrated sigh before he simply turned and grabbed his kit and left the room.

Grissom walked back over to the body where David still worked. He peered down at it, completely lost in thought. He didn't even notice David was studying him as he studied the body. Finally David broke the silence, "I can't imagine ever getting to be that old. It must be terrible to have your body give out on you like that."

Grissom turned his head and looked at David before he answered, "Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."


	4. Stargate SG1 & Atlantis

**SG1 and Atlantis**

Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c sat in the briefing room, waiting for General O'Neill to show up. A moment later, he comes strolling in, carrying a folder.

"We'll kids, looks like we have another problem that needs our attention," he announced as he walked from his office to his chair and sat down.

"What's up now?" Daniel asked.

"You remember those CSI's we had around a while back?" Jack asked.

"Yeah. One of them had a Goa'uld in them and we brought them to the Tok'ra to have it removed," Sam said.

"Yup, and then all hell broke loose and they wound up helping us out of it and now have top clearance at Nellis," Jack concluded.

"What about them, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.

"Well I just got a call from Grissom. Turns out he just got another case that he thinks is a little odd and wants our opinion on. He just faxed over the crime scene pictures," Jack said as he opened the folder and threw a stack of pictures into the center of the table.

Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c all reached for a photo nearest them and began to look it over. Sam was the first to react. "Was this in Vegas?!" she asked shocked.

"Yup. Taken just under an hour ago."

"Um Jack, how'd this happen?" Daniel asked.

"Beats me, but Weir is supposed to be checking in from Atlantis any minute and we're all going to have a little chat with her about these," he said as he picked up one of the photos and shook it.

"I thought that the Wraith do not know the location of Earth," Teal'c said with a raised eyebrow.

"That's what I've been told. But this looks an awfully lot like the photos of the bodies that Atlantis has sent over," Jack answered.

Sam spoke up next. "But sir, how? Not only do the Wraith not know where Earth is, but they have no way of getting here. None of their ships are capable of traveling this far in that amount of time."

"Not to mention that someone here on Earth would probably notice if they saw one walking around. It's not like the Goa'uld or Jaffa who can blend in," Daniel said.

"I don't know! I'm just telling you that there probably is one of these life sucking fugly things wandering around in Vegas for some unknown reason. We need to talk to Weir and find out what the hell has been happening on her end. Maybe we can shed some light onto some of your questions," Jack said.

"When is Atlantis scheduled to make contact?" Daniel asked.

Jack looked down at his watch. "Oh… in aboooouut…" he held up his right hand while he stared at his watch. He held up three fingers, then two, then one, and then threw up his hand as if to cue something.

Nothing happened.

He frowned as the other three glanced around expectedly. Jack lightly tapped his watch and continued to stare at it while he waited. A second later, the alarm sounded as Walter's voice echoed, "Off world activation."

Jack stood up saying, "Late. Alright, let's get this over with," and he walked over to and went down the spiral staircase that led to the control room. Sam, Daniel and Teal'c followed close behind.

"It's Atlantis General," Walter said as Jack came to stand next to him. "Audio and video coming through."

"Stargate command, this is Dr. Weir, please respond." Weir's voice sounded as her video feed appeared on the TV screen.

"Doctor, good to hear from you. How are things?" Jack answered in a cherry yet somehow sarcastic tone.

"General. Thankfully, everything has been fine. Nothing really exciting has been happening around here. We have been taking the last few weeks to finish mapping and exploring Atlantis."

"Good to hear. So no new Wraith activity? Nothing like say oh, someone letting Earth's location slip to one of the bad guys?"

Weir frowned as she said, "No. What's going on?"

"We just received evidence that a Wraith might be here on Earth," Sam answered.

"That's not possible. We have been very careful to keep Earth's location a secret," Weir responded.

"None the less, we just got these pictures today that say otherwise," Jack said as he held up one of the photos of the body.

Weir studied it through her own screen, shocked that something like that could turn up on Earth. "How could this happen?" she said, almost to herself.

"That's what we want to know," Jack said.

"How could a Wraith be on Earth without being noticed?" a voice asked from behind Weir. It was Colonel Sheppard.

"That was my question," Daniel said, waving his hand.

"I think I know how," a quite Scottish voice said from Weir's end.

"Carson?" she said as she turned to face him.

"I have been going over the information that I gathered on the Wraith retro virus that I created and I think that, even in their human form, the Wraith still have the ability to feed."

"What? Why didn't you say this before?" a new voice asked. It was definitely McKay.

"I didn't know until recently," Carson defended. "And I didn't want to say something until I knew for sure."

"But why haven't we seen evidence of this before now?" Weir asked.

"Because they no longer have the memory of feeding or the need to. But if they regained the memory, they wouldn't have to have the need to feed. It would be something like an addiction. We know that Michael began to remember being a Wraith the second time we treated him. It's possible that another would as well," Carson explained.

"But how? In order to stay human, they have to keep being injected by that retro virus," Sheppard said.

"Aye, and I know that I am not missing any," Carson answered.

Someone nervously cleared his throat. "I think I might be able to answer that one."

Weir turned all the way around to stare at Colonel Caldwell who had been quietly waiting to speak with Weir after her communication had finished.

"Colonel?" she asked.

"It was just brought to my attention that several vials of the retro virus are missing from the Daedalus med bay," he said.

"Just come to your attention?" Jack asked.

"Yes. I was about to inform Dr. Weir after she finished here. I didn't think that a missing drug that affected only Wraith was really all that important," Caldwell explained.

"But how did the Wraith get it?" McKay demanded.

"I have no idea," Caldwell answered.

"Right. Well I think that it would be best if we carried this on in person," Jack said. "I know that it would take weeks for the Daedalus to get here so I'm not going to require Caldwell to come through, but Dr. Weir, assemble a team and come on over. We have a lot that we are going to need to discuss and do and we should have the Wraith experts here to go through it. Caldwell, start heading back now. If nothing else, you'll need to bring Weir and the rest back to Atlantis when this is over," Jack ordered.

"Sir, I can send a team over, but I think it would be best if I stay here," Weir said.

"Don't push me Weir," Jack said as he raised a finger to the screen.

"General, Sheppard and his team would be best for this mission as well as Beckett. Caldwell is going to be leaving for Earth. That would leave no one here in charge. If something were to happen while I was gone, there would be no one to take care of things," she argued. "If I send you Sheppard, McKay, and Beckett, you'll have all the expert knowledge that you'll need and I would just be an extra body that you wouldn't need there."

"Fine, send those three. But you better hurry, we have spent a lot of time yakking and the 38 minutes will be up soon," Jack said.

"Yes sir," Weir answered.

A few minutes later, Colonel Sheppard and Dr.s McKay and Beckett stepped though the Atlantis gate and walked into Stargate command on Earth.

"Sheppard! Long time. no see," Jack said as he entered the gate room.

"Yeah, great to see ya again General," Sheppard answered deadpan. "So what mess have you gotten everyone in this time?"

"I have gotten us in? Seems to me that this is yours. Wraith are not my thing."

"Oh that's right, you've got the Goa'uld, I've got the Wraith. Glad we cleared that up," Sheppard said with a slight smile as he walked down the ramp.

"Excuse me. Yeah, how about we get this thing taken care of so we can have a few days off? I'm hoping to have this wrapped up before lunch so all we have to do is wait for the Daedalus to pick us up," McKay said.

"Rodney, there is a Wraith loose on Earth and all you can think about is time off?" Beckett exclaimed.

"What a shocker," Sam sighed as she entered the room.

"Colonel Carter, how are you?" a much more nervous looking yet subdued McKay asked.

Carter rolled her eyes as she ignored the quarry. "I'll take you three to your temporary quarters where you can drop off your stuff. Then we're going to go over everything in the briefing room before we take action," she said as she directed her comments solely to Sheppard.

"Sounds good, let's get going," he answered.

Jack stood leaning against the door frame with his hands stuffed in his pockets as everyone filed out of the room. As McKay, who was last, passed, he shrugged himself off the wall and followed behind, muttering something about saving the world yet again. McKay was sure that somewhere in there he heard a quiet, "Doh!"


	5. Doctor, Doctor

**Chapter 5**

**Doctor, Doctor**

The Doctor showed House to his med bay. Rose was still unconscious where he had left her. House glanced at her and then at the complex screen of vitals that glowed above her. He was somewhat surprised that he was able to understand all of it.

The Doctor noticed and said, "It's the TARDIS. She's both translating it for you and using your own knowledge to help you understand what the readings mean."

House glanced at the Doctor, not sure if he really liked the idea that some machine was inside his head, telling him what to think. Finally he decided that it was necessary and chose a different question to ask. "If the ship can help me understand, why can't it do the same for you?"

"Because I don't have medical knowledge. She can only work with what one already knows. She can't add any knowledge or point out answers. She only interprets and translates by using previously gained knowledge."

House decided that this was a pointless conversation and had long ago tuned the Doctor out. He began checking Rose's pulse physically and listened to her breathing. It wasn't that he didn't trust the readings… well, maybe it was he didn't trust the readings.

"Well you were right, her pulse is rapid. She's breathing fine right now, but I assume that that thing over her face is helping in that matter," he said.

"Yes."

"When did she first start showing symptoms?"

"She has been having a bit of a cold the last few days, but she seemed fine when she left to explore the ship. That was about an hour before I found her on the floor, just waking up from passing out."

"Cold? What were those symptoms?" House demanded.

"Headache, very slight fever, sore throat."

There was a glass dividing wall between Rose's bed and the next medical bed over. House walked over to it and seemingly pulled a marker out of now where and began to use the wall as his white board.

**Fever**

**Headache**

**Sore Throat**

**Disorientation**

**Seizure**

House paused for a moment before he turned from his writing and went over to Rose's side once again. He reached up to where the air mask was still helping her to breath and tried to pull it off. But the mechanism that had placed it there resisted him.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor demanded.

"I need to see if she is still having breathing problems or if that has passed," House said. "Now get this thing off of her."

"It's there for a reason. You're not going to go risking her life for no reason," the Doctor said.

"I always have a reason. And if I'm not mistaken, it was you who came to me. If you want my help, we're going to do things my way. Now take it off." he said flatly.

The Doctor stared at House for a moment before he glanced back down to the unconscious Rose. He took another moment to decide that he was going to have to trust House. He was not one to trust anyone. But in this case, he knew that for once he was completely out of his element and that if they were going to help Rose, he was going to have to trust this man.

The Doctor walked up to the screen above Rose and reached out, pressing first a small green button and then a larger red one. There was a slight hum and then the air mask lifted and retracted from Rose's face.

House watched intently as the air was taken away. He stood there for a few minutes as he watched Rose steady into her own rhythm of breathing. Her breaths were slightly shallow, but she was definitely holding her own now without the help of the machine. He waited a few more seconds to make sure that she was really doing alright before he nodded his head and returned to writing.

**Possible Respiratory Distress**

"She's breathing alright now?" the Doctor asked as he stared intently at Rose's face, fearing that any moment she would stop breathing again.

"For now. I need to know if she lapses again though. If she doesn't, then the breathing problems were probably more connected with the seizure. If she does, it's a symptom on its own."

"So you mean we have to wait around to see if she stops breathing again?" the Doctor looked horrified. He couldn't believe how archaic this man was. And this man thought he was ahead of his time but the Doctor was sure that he was stuck in the Dark Ages.

"Remember, you brought me in. This is how medicine works. You examine the symptoms, try a diagnosis and wait and see if the symptoms change. If they do, then you get more information and are that much closer to a solution. Right now, it would be helpful if she were to stop breathing again. It would give us more information to work with."

"You're not a medical doctor, you're a witch doctor. Wait and see if she gets worse, if she gets better in the mean time, then you 'solved it,' if she gets worse, then you have a bigger miracle to work."

"Do you want my help or not? I'm sure that if you find me too primitive, you could use your ship to go find someone more advanced. Just drop me off at Vegas and I will be out of your hair and you can find someone else to diagnose her. Chances are she picked up some alien disease anyway that I have no knowledge of," House ranted as he began to make his way to the door.

"Wait!" the Doctor called as House was almost of the door. "I chose you for a reason. It has to be you, I know that. I'm sorry," he said, hating to admit that he was so completely dependent on someone else.

House turned around and gave the Doctor a penetrating stare before he said. "Are you going to trust me? Even if it seems she's only getting worse, will you do what I say without question?"

The Doctor stared back, just as strongly as he thought over his response. "I'll trust you, yes. I will do whatever you say as well. But I can't guarantee that I will do it without question. I have spent too much of my very long life only depending on me; it is going to be very difficult for me to blindly follow the instructions of someone I barely know."

House nodded once as he reentered the room. "Fair enough. If you had said yes, I'm not sure I would have had any respect left for you. You seem to be someone who can handle yourself and it would be wrong for you to completely trust anyone. Everyone lies, including me. I work best when I am being questioned, that is why I have a team," he admitted.

He pulled his pen light out of a pocket and began to check Rose's pupil dilation as he continued saying. "You better get us to Las Vegas. That's where the rest of my team is. If you want me to solve this before she dies, I'm going to need them."

The Doctor sighed. Great, more people involved. More people who were going to need convincing that this was all real. But he recognized that if this was how House usually worked, then he should probably allow the man to continue that way.

He got up and took one last long look at Rose before he left the med bay and left Dr. House to ponder over her. As he entered the control room he thought to himself, "_Some__ doctor I am." _

With in moments he had the TARDIS parked in a back ally of Vegas. Of course no one noticed as their eyes just slipped on by it. The Doctor paused at the controls, taking a deep breath to steady himself. So much seemed to have happened in such a short amount of time. It was hardly more than three hours ago that he and Rose were standing together, laughing at something or other he had said. Now she was unconscious in the next room, possibly dying, with some doctor that he had briefly met once trying to save her.

The Doctor didn't even know if this doctor was any good. He just reacted to some instinct that he had had like he so often would. But what if he was wrong this time? What if he chose incorrectly and brought the next Josef Mengele in?

_No,_ he thought to himself. _My instincts have always worked for me before. I shouldn't doubt now._

Of course his doubts firmly reasserted themselves when he walked back into the med bay to find Doctor House sitting beside Rose, feet propped up on her bed, playing his Gameboy. "What the hell are you doing?!" he demanded

"Well, it looks to me like I'm about to beat my all time score in Asteroids. Thought maybe since I'm going to be flying through time and space in a police box, I should at least be a decent shot."

"I bring you here to help Rose and I find you sitting there playing a game?" he said as he angrily stormed over to where House was sitting, knocking his legs from the bed onto the floor.

"And I thought we already had this discussion. How you were going to trust me to do my job?" House said, sitting up and staring back.

"Yes, I said I would trust you to do your job… not sit around doing nothing as we watch her get worse! What kind of doctor are you?"

"The kind that has saved countless lives and still is able to go by my name and not just _The_ Doctor. I have gotten damn good at what I do and I don't have to take criticism from a want-to-be doctor who allegedly flies about the universe saving people when he can't even save the woman he loves."

They had a mini stare down as House wrapped up his rant. Finally, the Doctor broke the silence. "I was wrong. I can't trust you. We're in Las Vegas… I have brought you where you needed to be. Not get out. I'll find someone else to help," he said in a deadly whisper. He was well beyond pissed off with this man.

House glared at the Doctor for a moment before he used his cane to stand up. He continued to glare at him before saying, "Thanks for the lift. TARDIS is a much better way to fly than any airline." With that he turned and walked to the doorway where he paused. Without turning around he said, "I hope you are able to save her," and with that he vanished through the door.

The Doctor listened as he heard the outside door of the TARDIS open and then closed once again. The man had left. He had kicked out the one person he knew who might be able to save Rose. Now where was he to turn?


	6. Swallow Your Pride

**Swallow Your Pride**

What had he done? Rose may not live long enough for him to find another doctor. Why had he thrown Dr. House out? Why couldn't he just trust the man?

But he knew why, it was not in his nature to trust anyone. He had always been self-reliant and now this feeling of helplessness was suffocating him.

The Doctor stared down at Rose, knowing that he needed to go out and find House again, persuade him to come back and diagnose her… treat her. It only took a moment for his resolve to harden again. He had to get her help and he was going to have to swallow his own pride to do it.

He got up and quickly left the TARDIS in search of Dr. House.

* * *

House had left quickly and had no intention of helping those two any more. He was angered by that smug, self assured, cocky Doctor. And where did that man get off calling himself a doctor anyway? A doctor of what… lunacy?

House shook his head to himself and he mentally vented while limping down the strip. This wasn't the first time that House had been to Vegas and knew exactly where he was. He wasn't all that far from the Tangiers in fact, which was his hotel on this trip.

He had just made it to the entrance when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the ID before answering it. "What do you want Cameron?" he barked as he pushed the door open.

"Nothing, I just thought I should let you know that we made it to Vegas alright. Is your flight still on time?"

House stopped in the entrance and glanced up, seeing Cameron standing in the center of the lobby on her phone, facing away from him. The other two members of his team were just a little ways off. They also did not seem to have spotted him yet.

"Well actually, it was a bit ahead of schedule," House answered with a grin and he began to make his way to Cameron.

"Really?! That's strange," she answered.

"When was it that you were expecting me?" he asked, now only a few feet away from her. She still had not turned around.

"Not for another four or five hours. When do you think you'll be here?"

"Oh, not sure," he answered. "But I have to say, that is a very nice pink blouse you have on today. If you would turn around, I could decide if it is low cut enough to be sexy," he said as he was now standing almost directly behind her, leering down at her.

She turned with a gasp as she pulled the phone from her ear and stared bewilderedly up at her boss. "House!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"Well I was pretty sure that we were both supposed to attend the same medical conference, but if I'm wrong, I'm sure there is some Plushies conference I could attend instead."

"You know what I mean. Why are you here now? So soon?" she asked.

"Told you, my flight was ahead of schedule."

"House, no flight can leave that far ahead of schedule, you must have gotten an earlier flight," she concluded as she took a step back. He had been awfully close to her and it made her very uncomfortable.

"Sure, we'll go with that," he answered as Chase and Foreman now spotted him and were on their way over.

"What are you doing here?" Chase asked as they neared.

"Well I thought that I might take a few vacation days and blow a bunch of money at the poker tables but then Cuddy said something about this damn conference I had to go to. Luckily, it was in Vegas so I can still blow that money and have you three go to the conference for me."

Cameron rolled her eyes. "He got an earlier flight, God knows why. And you are not sticking us with this thing," she informed him flatly.

He was about to come back with a biting remark when he was rudely interrupted by someone calling his name.

"House!" he heard come from over by the entrance. House rolled his eyes. That could only be one person, someone that he expected to see again, but had no intention of listening to. He didn't even turn around as the Doctor came strolling up behind him.

"How about we check into our rooms then?" he said, ignoring his name being called again.

"House, who is that?" Chase asked.

"No one," he said. "Room?"

"We can't. There's been some kind of crime and our whole hall way has been sectioned off by the cops," Cameron explained as she watched the stranger approach. "Really House, who is that guy?"

House sighed as he turned around to face the approaching Doctor. The man looked both pissed and contrite at the same time. An interesting combination, House thought to himself. "He's someone who wants a favor that I'm not at all interested in giving," he answered as he stared at the Doctor, making sure that he was able to hear his comment.

The Doctor paused where he was. He didn't know how to handle this man. Usually he was great at manipulating people, particularly humans, but this man seemed a mystery to him.

They had another short stare down before House asked, "Why are you here? I thought you didn't want my help."

"I was wrong. I shouldn't have thrown you out. I overreacted. Please, help me," the Doctor answered simply. He didn't know what else he could say.

The ducklings looked on in confusion. Who was this man and why did he want House's help?

"House, what's going on here?" Cameron asked.

House glared at the Doctor for a little while longer. He was not going to give in easily but he did want to give in. It was a really interesting case and he had resented the fact that he had been thrown out before.

"Guys, and Chase, I'd like you to meet the Doctor," he said flatly, never once breaking eye contact.

Cameron took in a soft gasp of air as Chase and Foreman exchanged looks. The last time the Doctor had shown up, none of them had seen him, but House had told them. He had tried to explain what had happened. After all, they had all seen the other alien, why wouldn't they think that there might be more? But just like them, they hadn't believed that the Doctor was real. They weren't even sure if the Glerth had been real and they had seen it with their own eyes.

"House, please tell me this is another joke," Foreman said.

"No, he's telling the truth," the Doctor said, also refusing to break eye contact.

"You're the alien that he told us about that showed up and got rid of some pain eating alien?" Chase asked doubtfully.

"That would be me."

"If that's true, why in the world would you want House's help with something?" Foreman said.

"Because, despite his name, he's not much of a doctor. His friend is sick and he wants me to help her," House answered smugly. He still thought it was pretty great that an advanced alien was coming to him for help.

Cameron rolled her eyes as she said, "Great, let's just feed his ego a little more. That's just what he needs."

"Right now I'll do whatever he wants if he will just help me," the Doctor said. "House, I need you. I can't think of anyone else to turn to that would be better for this. Just please, help her."

House took one final measuring look at the Doctor before he turned his back to him and faced his team. "Alright, you three, go with him. He'll show you the girl and around his medical bay. She's got a high fever that is going to need to be brought down right away before her brain fries. Depending on what you have available to you, start her on as broad spectrum antibiotics as you can. My guess right now is viral meningitis. If it is, great. You'll have saved her life in time for us to make it to this damned conference. If not, I'm going to need you three to help me to be in two places at once. If Cuddy finds out that we skipped out on the conference, we're all toast."

"House, why should we be helping? We have no attachment to this man," Foreman said.

"Because I told you to. Or because there is a girl who will probably die if you don't… take your pick."

"And what are you going to be doing?" Chase asked.

"I am going to find out what the hell is going on around here why we can't get into our rooms," he declared.

"I told you, it's a police thing," Cameron said.

"How vague. A murder? A mugging? A trick roll? You know me, I need details."

"What about Rose?" the Doctor asked.

House didn't turn around to address him; he let the question hang in the air. The other three looked to this strange man and saw that he was genuinely concerned about his friend. They felt for him, especially Cameron. "This is how we work, he tells use what to do, we do it and eventually we come up with the correct solution. We can take care of this," she answered reassuringly.

The Doctor nodded once and then to break the seriousness he smiled his huge quirky grin and said, "Right then. Shall we?" and he turned to leave, expecting the other three to follow.

Chase and Cameron rolled their eyes and followed the man out. Foreman hung back and looked at House. "You think we can help? If what you told us about these two before is true, then it's possible that she doesn't even have a disease from this planet."

House shrugged. "That's not my problem. He seems intent that I am the one who would help; who am I to argue with an advanced alien?"

Foreman just shook his head at House and was about to follow after the others when House told him, "I'm sure that somewhere on that ship there has to be some type of lab. Get him to help you run blood tests. If possible, some type of MRI would be helpful. Check the blood for meningitis first. I'll be back there in a little while. I expect those tests done so we can continue from there."

Foreman nodded and hurried to catch up with his fellows and the Doctor.

A/N: so this is really a blast to write… but would make it even more of a blast is if I got some more reviews : )

Sophie: You're great, I love your reviews and I think I might work with the suggestion that you made between Jack and the Doctor. And there are going to be many interesting conversations between Jack and House, I promise. But as for the Vala thing… yeah, I could see that a convo between her and the Doctor could be very funny, but I just don't want to bring her character in. One, it would mess up my own little AU where Jack is still around and two, I'm not really a fan.

But keep reviewing; I love to see when I get reviews.

Thanks a bunch.


	7. Bad Move

A/N: thanks for the reviews. I realized that I was a little negligent on the next chapter with the ducklings reaction to the TARDIS thanks to you guys. I'm going to go back and revise. But this chapter doesn't yet get there, so, enjoy!

**Bad Move**

Sara entered the scene to find Grissom alone with the body, kneeling beside it contemplating the scene. "What's going on?" Sara asked. She had received a call from him a little while before asking her to come and help on the Tangiers case. He hadn't elaborated but something in his voice had told her it was something big. "And where's Warrick? I thought this was his case."

"I sent him to help Catherine. It's ours now," he said simply, without taking his eyes from the body.

"Ok… why?" she asked with a bemused smile. He was acting a little odder then normal today. It was strange for him to kick someone off a case without a good reason and she couldn't see what was so special about this case at first glance. She hadn't gotten any information on what was going on, but she could see how old the guy was, this seemed like a no-brainer.

"Because I don't think this is an entirely earthly case," Grissom said as he pulled back the sheet to show her the bloody puncture marks on the man's chest. "Look familiar?" he asked.

Sara looked down at the body for a few moments before saying, "No. Should it?"

Grissom cocked an eye brow. "Don't tell me that every time you get to work at Nellis, you haven't perused the top secret reports and mission files?"

"Sorry, I'm usually a bit more interested in messing around with all of alien technology," she said with a smile.

"Hmm. Well I have been reading some about their Atlantis project and found some very interesting things."

"Atlantis is the base they have in the Pegasus Galaxy, isn't it?"

Grissom nodded, "They have had people working out there for about two years now. Apparently they have a completely different alien enemy in that galaxy. One who feeds upon humanoids and drains their life though their hand," he said as he hovered his hand over the bloody marks on the body, showing that the punctures lined up with his fingers.

"It never ceases to amaze me all of the different forms of life and technologies that are out there," she answered as she realized exactly what the implications of this were. "Have you called the SGC yet?"

"Yes. I faxed over the crime scene photos to General O'Neill. He wants us to keep this under wraps until they get here."

"He's coming to Vegas again?" Sara asked.

"Yes, but he wasn't sure what he was going to do yet or who he was going to bring with him. Apparently there is a little to discuss before they come charging in. They aren't entirely sure how this alien, the Wraith, got to Earth and they are going to have to track it down."

"So what until then?" she asked. Grissom opened up his mouth to answer when he was interrupted by sounds of raised voices outside. They exchanged a glance before they moved to the door and looked outside.

As they looked the short way down the hall to where the elevator was, they saw a man with a cane talking rather loudly with Brass who had just showed up himself.

"Come on, you mean you're gonna keep a cripple out of his room without any explanation about what's going on?" the man demanded.

"Sir, I don't care if you're the King of England, no one is allowed up here until it has been cleared," Brass said as he placed a restraining hand on the man's shoulder.

"Come on man, I've got rights. I should get to know why I'm being kept out of my current place of residence," he said while trying to push past Brass.

"Excuse me," Grissom said as he walked over to where the confrontation was. "What's going on here?"

"That's what I want to know," the man with the cane said.

"I gathered that, Mr…." Grissom said, waiting for the name.

"_Dr_. House," the man replied harshly.

"Dr. House?" Grissom said more to himself than anything. "There has been a murder in one of the rooms and we need to make sure that our scene is not contaminated. That is why we cannot allow anyone else up here," Grissom explained.

"Well thank you. At least someone has the decency to answer questions. Who was it?"

Grissom looked at House for a minute before he turned to Brass and said, "Do you mind if I speak to Dr. House alone for a moment?"

Brass stared at Grissom like he had two heads. Grissom just gave him the "trust me on this one," look.

Brass nodded and let House pass. Grissom turned and led him to the room where the murder had taken place. Sara, who had stayed near the door, went in and pulled the sheet up over the body so House wouldn't be able to see it.

As soon as Grissom and House were in the room, the CSI closed the door and said, "I think it would be best if you don't touch anything in here,"

"Yeah, wouldn't want to make myself a suspect now," House said sarcastically. He was sure that he already had done just that by demanding to know what was going on. That was the only reason he could see for this guy to want to talk to him.

"So, you're a doctor then?" Grissom asked casually.

"Yeah, I thought that whole Dr. title before my name was a bit of a give a way."

"Are you aware that the man killed was also a doctor?" Grissom asked waving his hand to the covered body.

"Well I thought I asked who it was that was killed, but maybe not. So no, I didn't know. Though it's not all that surprising. There's a medical conference going on here this week and this floor has been booked full of doctors."

"What kind of medical conference?" Sara asked.

"The kind where a bunch of overly pompous doctors get together to show off and try to impress each other for a week," House answered as he rolled his eyes. He really hated these conferences.

"Dr. House, we just want to know why one of your colleagues has been killed. Don't you think you could answer our question directly?" Grissom said patiently.

House thought a moment and answered. "Nope, not good at direct. This is about as good as you're gonna get."

Grissom raised an eye brow before he continued. "When did you arrive in Vegas?" he asked.

"About an hour ago," he answered. "Is that direct enough for you?"

"Yes, thank you. So you weren't here yet when the murder took place around three hours ago?"

"I think that's what it means when I say I got here an hour ago."

"Dr. House, do you know this man?" Sara asked as she held up the evidence bag with the driver's license in it.

House looked at it. He thought maybe he had seen the man at some point, but there were no real bells going off in his head. "Nope, never met the man," he answered.

"So you don't know what hospital he worked for then?" Sara pressed.

House glanced at the license again. "I would assume it was one in Maryland, considering that's where his license says he's from. But I'm sure you bright criminalists could have figured that one out without my help."

Grissom cocked an eye brow again as he studied the man in front of him. There was something about this man that didn't feel right. Under normal circumstances, he would have mentally put this guy at the top of his suspects list, but not with this being a… foreign case. He shook his head slightly to himself before he said, "Alright, thank you Dr. House. I'm going to have to ask you to give Detective Brass your contact information in case we have any more questions for you."

"Yeah, in other words you think I'm suspicious and you want to be able to keep an eye on me," House said as he made his way back to the door. As he reached for the knob he couldn't help himself. "I noticed that you only showed me a picture and not the actual body, is there some reason for that?"

Sara and Grissom exchanged a look before Sara answered, "The body is in pretty bad shape."

"And yet there isn't any sign of blood around," House said as he opened the door. He continued to himself as he walked out, "Normally a body that has become unrecognizable has a tendency to have lost a lot of blood."

He closed the door behind him, leaving Sara and Grissom to exchange another look. "What was that?" Sara asked.

"I have no idea," Grissom admitted. "But I think we need to tell the General about this when he gets here. I don't trust that guy."

Sara nodded in response.

* * *

House walked down the hall and put up with the contact information that Brass wanted and then left. As he was going back down the elevator, he was wondering what in the world had possessed him to go up there and harass the police for anyway. He certainly didn't need to land himself in the middle of a murder investigation considering everything else that he had to put up with right now.

He reached the lobby and nearly ran into a hotel worker on his way into the elevator on his way out. "How about you watch where you're going!" House snapped to the younger man. If House had to take a guess he would put the man at about ten years younger than himself. Short blond hair and a long narrow face.

"Sorry sir," the man said, though he didn't sound sorry in the slightest.

"Aren't you a little old to be a bell boy?" House asked as the doors began to close behind him on the other man.

The man simply shrugged before the doors closed all the way. House shook the encounter off and continued on his way back to the TARDIS. He had more important things to do than bother with strange bellboys and murder investigations.

* * *

"Thanks General, we'll be expecting you soon then," Grissom said into his cell phone just before hanging up.

"He's on his way?" Sara asked.

Grissom nodded as he said, "O'Neill and three members from Atlantis left the SGC and are on their way. Shouldn't be more than an hour before they're here."

"Ok, well what are we going to do then?"

"Only thing we can do. Keep this scene closed off and no one else gets to see it."

"What about Brass? He's probably getting rather suspicious why we won't so much as let him in or why we haven't had the body sent back to the lab yet. David has already wrapped up his thing; by all rights the body should have been out of here a while ago."

Grissom shook his head. "We're just going to have to come up ways of stalling. Maybe I can convince Brass to go run a background check on that Dr. House."

"It's the best lead that we have so far," Sara answered. "After all, we have no idea what a Wraith looks like, do we?"

"No, I haven't seen or heard anything about their appearance. They may be just as human looking as the Goa'uld or Jaffa."

"So for all we know, that doctor might be a Wraith," Sara concluded.

Grissom nodded as he went to the door to go and ask Brass to run that background check. This was going to be another interesting one…


	8. Everyones' Story

A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews. I really love to hear from you guys.

Sophie: Don't think I'm going to be able to give Daniel a girl this time around. There's already so much going on I shudder at the thought of adding a new character. Rodney is definitely going to be around and as for your Carson theory; I wasn't too clear on what it was.

I added the first part here with the duckling reaction last since I realized, thanks to your reviews, that I had completely neglected to put it in. It is rather short, but I hope it's enough.

Thanks… please continue to R&R

**Everyone's Story**

Cameron, Chase, Foreman and the Doctor stood outside the TARDIS, as the Doctor unlocked the door.

"This is your space ship?" Chase asked with a raised eye-brow.

Cameron stood arms crossed staring at the box in front of her. "I don't think all of us are going to fit in there," she said.

"Human's always believe what they see," the Doctor muttered.

"What's up with the blue police box anyway? It's not like it blends in very well in the middle of the Las Vegas strip," Foreman said.

"Shows what you know," the Doctor said. "Did you notice it before I stopped in front of it?"

The three exchanged a glance and realized that none of them had. Of course they didn't want to answer that.

"You see. Humans have such simple minds. It's incredibly easy for you to ignore something that's right in front of you with just the slightest suggestion," he grinned at them and then made a show as he opened the door. He bowed and waved them in saying, "Now, see for yourself exactly what you take for a common police box."

They exchanged another glance before entering the box. Foreman went first, followed by Cameron and Chase; the Doctor followed behind.

There was a moment of silence as they glanced around the huge room that was before them. All three had a look of utter confusion plastered on their faces. "How is this possible?" Chase almost whispered as Foreman turned around.

The Neurologist walked past the Doctor and back out side. The Doctor watched him with amusement as he leaned against the doorway, hands in pockets. Foreman was walking around the TARDIS, looking at it from all sides, trying to discover what the secret was. He stopped once again at the door and placed a hand against the side, still completely baffled.

"Like it?" the Doctor asked, feeling rather proud of his ship. It never ceased to amaze people, even those of other, more advanced species than humans. It was unique in the entire galaxy and it was all his.

"I don't believe it," Foreman said as he shook his head and entered once again.

"How's it work?" Cameron asked as she began to wander about the control room, taking all of the sights in.

"That's a little complicated," the Doctor said as he closed the door behind them and walked to the center of the room. "I doubt that you would be able to understand it all so why don't we go see to Rose?" he said as he continued across the room and was about to head down another hallway.

"There's more?" Chase asked as he realized that there were several hallways going off of that one room.

"Yup," the Doctor smiled. "I'll show you around the parts you'll need to know. This way," and with that he disappeared down the hall.

The three looked at each other once last time before plunging ahead. This was going to be a very interesting day.

* * *

"So Sheppard, what can you tell us?" Jack said as he took his seat at the head of the briefing room table.

"Well General, we're still not entirely sure how this could have happened, but Caldwell had a little more useful information for us before we left," Sheppard answered.

"Spill it," O'Neill said to him.

"It turns out that last time he was here, picking up supplies for Atlantis, there was a strange energy reading while he was in orbit within his ship," Colonel Sheppard informed O'Neill.

O'Neill was about to say something when McKay broke in, "Of course he didn't think it was important enough to check out at the time, even though the reading was well off the chart for normal operations. But I down loaded the computer logs before I left and have been analyzing them," he sat his lap top that he had been holding on the table as he continued. "Turns out our distinguished Colonel Caldwell missed a really big one. It wasn't any normal energy spike; it had the distinct signature of the Asgard beaming technology installed on the Daedalus."

"Meaning…?" Daniel prompted.

"Meaning that Caldwell probably brought a damned stowaway from Pegasus to Earth!" McKay exclaimed.

"That doesn't seem very likely," Carter started. "The Daedalus is equipped with internal sensors. It would be very hard for a Wraith to hide out on board without tripping sensors."

"Aye, but not if he had already been injected with the retrovirus. He would appear completely human to the sensors at that point," Beckett answered.

"For cryin' out loud… How the hell did one of these things get aboard in the first place?!" O'Neill exclaimed.

There was silence around the table for a moment before Beckett answered, "The only way that I can think of is if one of the retrovirus-treated Wraith survived from the colony we had when it was destroyed. It could have conceivably beamed aboard the Daedalus when it came and got us."

"That would mean it had been hiding on board for nearly a month," Sheppard said, unconvinced that it was the solution they were looking for.

There was silence for a few more moments before O'Neill said, "Well in reality, it doesn't really matter right now how the damned thing got here, just that we find it and make sure it doesn't attack anyone else."

"The General's right. We need to concentrate on bringing the Wraith in above all else," Carter agreed.

"That means that someone is going to have to go out to Vegas," O'Neill declared.

"Well there was obviously a reason you wanted the Wraith experts here, so I'm sure that the three of us are going to have to go," Sheppard stated.

O'Neill nodded. "I supposed that I'll have to go too. The CSI's out there know me and this all falls to my shoulders in the end anyway," he sighed.

"Do you want us too?" Sam asked, indicating SG-1.

"No, I think you three can stay here. Too many of us out there will bring a lot of suspicion from the locals. It's going to be bad enough with two military and two doctors on military pay."

Sam nodded. "Maybe we should try and contact the Asgard again, they might be able to help scan for our Wraith like with the Goa'uld we had last time," Daniel suggested.

"Couldn't hurt," O'Neill said.

"I don't know if even the Asgard scans will be able to distinguish the Wraith if it is still using the retro virus though," Beckett stated.

"Still, couldn't hurt," O'Neill repeated as he stood up. "Alright troops, let's head out!"

* * *

"What've you got for me?" House said as he entered the medical bay.

"It's not meningitis," Cameron stated. "She's not reacting to the antibiotics and the tests came back negative."

House glanced at his watch. "The test came through already?" he asked.

"Amazing what a little advanced alien technology can do," the Doctor said from where he sat in a chair beside Rose's bed.

"So there's been no change? No new symptoms?" House asked.

"Nothing," Foreman said. "Her heart rate is still elevated and she's still unconscious. It seems that her fever has topped at 104 but we can't seem to bring it down. Too much longer at that temp and…" he trailed off as he glanced over to the Doctor.

"And there won't be much left to save," he finished for him. "I might not know much about humans but I know that their brains can't take those high temperatures for very long."

House thought for a second before he asked, "Where's Chase?"

"He's running another test for Yellow Fever," Foreman answered.

"Not likely," House said flatly as he walked over to check Rose himself. "Does it look like she has yellow skin to you?" he said.

"There have been cases of Yellow Fever where the patient didn't develop jaundice," Foreman countered.

"Yeah, if you say so," House said. "But I would think the reason it's called _Yellow_ Fever, is because of the yellow."

Foreman was about to counter again when House continued, "Besides, she didn't have severe enough symptoms before her collapse. There should have been gastrointestinal problems besides the other cold like symptoms."

"It's always possible that it is an atypical strain," Foreman finished. He wasn't sure why he was defending Chase's idea. He hadn't been very convinced of it himself when the Intensivist had decided to run the test. But since the tests were so easy and fast to run with the aid of the TARDIS computer, he hadn't seen the harm in it.

"It's not," Chase declared as he entered the room. "Test came back, it's not Yellow Fever."

"Told ya," House stated cockily.

"Then what is it?" the Doctor demanded. He hated how slowly this whole process was going.

House sighed before saying, "How many times do I have to tell you? This is going to take time."

"Time she might not have!" the Doctor shouted as he stood up and gestured to Rose. "She's lying there dying and all you four can do is argue over what it is or isn't!" He had been determined not to piss House off again. He needed these people, but he couldn't help it; the man was just so infuriating.

House glared at the Doctor again. He knew that the man was worried and that there was really no way for someone so self reliant to just sit there and wait on them to solve things; but he wasn't going to be able to work properly if he kept rushing them.

"We're aware of the time constraints here, Doctor. And I know that it is hard for you to shut that trap of yours, but I would suggest doing so if you want us to continue to work on this," House announced.

The Doctor took a deep, exasperated breath. Cameron could see that the man was beside himself with worry and she wanted to give him some type of reassurance, but she couldn't think of any.

"Maybe it would be better if you took a walk for a little while… clear your head and let us work?" she suggested.

"Yes, good idea," House said. "Cameron, go with him. Find out where these two have been in the last few weeks. Since you seem convinced that I'm the one to help you, then you might as well leave out anything that's off of this planet. Just concentrate on where and when you've been on Earth," House said.

"And if it's from another world?" the Doctor asked.

"Then I'm not going to be any help; no matter how much you want me to be," House stated flatly.

The Doctor stared at him for a minute. Yes, he thought, he couldn't expect a doctor from twentieth century Earth to know any thing about diseases from other planets. But his instincts were still telling him that this was his guy, so it must be something from Earth. He nodded and followed Cameron out of the room.

* * *

House watched as they left before he turned back to his other two minions. "Alright, I assume that you know how to run those blood tests now with this stuff," he said more as a statement then a question.

The other two nodded anyway. "And do you know where the medicines and treatments are?" he asked.

"Yeah, there's quite an assortment in the back. And it's even organized pretty close to the hospital's," Chase answered.

"I have a feeling that has more to do with the ship than anything," House said. "But good. Foreman, you get her started on Prophylaxis immediately."

Both men's eyes got big as Chase said, "You think it's Anthrax?"

"It fits. And if we don't get it treated right now, she doesn't have a chance. Now Foreman go be a good puppy and go get the Prophylaxis and Chase you run the blood test."

"I know this is probably pointless to bring up, but what if it's not? The Prophylaxis could only make her worse," Chase said.

"You're right, it is pointless because if it is, she'll die. I'm sure you learned somewhere in that medical training of yours that the longer Anthrax is in the system the more difficult it is to get out. As it is, Prophylaxis is the last resort. The broad spectrum didn't have an effect, this is all we got left."

"But the fact that she didn't improve at all on the broad spectrum should be evidence that it's not Anthrax," Foreman argued.

"Look, I already told the Doctor that I needed to be challenged in order to do my job, but this is just wasteful. I told you to do something, now do it!"

The other two rolled their eyes as they left to do what they had been commanded. They both knew why it was that House had waited for both the Doctor and Cameron to not be around for this conversation. Neither would be very willing to go through with it before confirmation came through. But they also both knew that House was right about needing to start the treatment right away if it was. As it was, it may already be too late.

* * *

Grissom's phone rang. He checked the ID and saw that it was Brass. "Grissom," he answered.

"Grissom, I did some checking on that Dr. House and he's looking a bit more than a little suspicious. It looks like he has been sued for medical malpractice more times then Kevorkian. Somehow, he always gets out of it. But here's the interesting part. His flight wasn't booked to leave New Jersey until an hour from now and there is no record of him changing his flight. Which means we have no way of verifying that he got here before or after the murder."

"So he's possibly lying to us," Grissom said.

"I would count on it. The only reason I can think of that he would be here without record of travel is if he used another name. And why would he use another name if he was just coming out here for a conference and not up to no good?"

"I see your point," Grissom said. He could see how this was rather suspicious, but the more he thought about it, the more he wished that he hadn't got Brass involved in this. If Brass got it in his head to go and arrest Dr. House, he could be in danger if House was the Wraith that they were looking for.

And then Brass confirmed Grissom's worries, "I'm going to bring him in. There are just too many holes in this guys alibi to sound credible."

"Brass, I'm not sure that's such a good idea," he wasn't sure how he was going to be able to convince Brass of this, but he had to try.

"Why?"

"I just don't think that we have enough evidence to pull him in yet. If we have to release him before we have all we need to arrest, he could skip out on us."

"Gil, I don't want this guy out there any longer," Brass said.

"Neither do I, but we have to wait for the evidence."

"Maybe we could have more if you two would release the body for autopsy," Brass said accusingly.

Grissom sighed to himself before saying, "Jim, just trust me. Don't bring him in yet," with that he hung up, hoping to keep from having to further explain himself.

"What's up?" Sara asked.

"I'm beginning to think that giving Brass the task of the background check wasn't such a good idea."

"He wants to bring the guy in?"

"And he has no idea how dangerous that could be," Grissom said with a nod.

* * *

"So, where have you been?" Cameron asked. She actually was pretty interested to hear where it was an alien would travel to in a ship that could go anywhere in space and time.

"Let's see… We went to visit her mum in London for a few days and then it was off to Halithea. Beautiful sunsets and sunrises, but that's due to the heavy pollution. I guess we can skip that one since it's not Earth. So, the next time we were back on Earth was Ireland 1930. Then New New York 2123 which I suppose wouldn't work either since House wouldn't know anything after his time either."

Cameron nodded.

"Well then it was off to Lake Michigan for a few. Some nasty lake monster popped up around Beaver Island. Spent nearly a week on the island trying to get rid of that thing. And then it was to a few more other planets and then here," he finished.

"Alright, nothing really jumps out at me, but knowing House, he'll pull something from all of that," she told him.

"You really respect him, don't you?" the Doctor asked.

"He may be a conceited ass most of the time, but I have seen him do some amazing things over the last two years. I think that I am very lucky to have a chance to work with him," she answered.

The Doctor nodded as they continued to walk. He was trying to get his mind off of Rose, but the only way that he could do that was if he were to concentrate on something else. And right now the only other thing he had to concentrate on was finding out more about this Dr. House.

"So tell me, why is he so… confrontational?"

Cameron thought for a moment. "No one really knows. I guess he has always been that way to some degree or other. But from what I gather he's gotten much worse after his infarction."

"So that's why he has the cane!" the Doctor said, finally having that question answered.

"Yeah. After that he became even more bitter, lost his marriage, and now has to live with constant pain."

"Plus side is he has an excuse to take pain pills all the time."

Cameron frowned at that one. "Yeah, which probably doesn't help his personality any. He's become completely dependant on his pills. It's been a source of worry for all of us that care about him."

The Doctor thought for a moment before saying, "Why would you care about him? He doesn't seem to care about anyone else. Except, perhaps, his friend Dr. Wilson."

"Yeah, him and Wilson are close, but he would never admit to that. And he does care for other people, even if he doesn't realize it. But he's become so afraid that if he invests himself in anyone, then he's only setting himself up for disappointment when they let him down. And everyone at some point will let him down because he sets such high expectations for both himself and those around him."

"But he really does care for people?"

Cameron nodded. "It's hard to see, but after you get to know him, you realize that the more insults and cynical remarks that he gives you, the more he cares. It's a strange thing, but it works for him. He tries to distance himself with those remarks only because he's afraid that he might actually care. But they become proof that he does care… Am I making any sense?" she paused and asked.

The Doctor smiled and nodded. "Yes. I understand perfectly. In fact, I probably understand the pushing away the more you care better than anyone."

"Really?" she asked. "You don't seem that way to me."

The Doctor gave a sad smile as his thoughts were once again pulled back to Rose. "Well, you might not see it now. But it's true." And he left it at that. Cameron could tell that he was done with this line of questioning.

She decided that it was time to change the subject. "So; what's it like. Traveling through space and time?"

He smiled again and launched into several of his favorite stories and before they knew it, they had made it back to the TARDIS and were both laughing hysterically. He was a very funny guy with a lot of great stories to tell.

They walked in and were still trying to suppress laughter when they walked back into the medical bay. But the atmosphere died as soon as they realized what was happening.

Foreman was just turning Rose back from her side where he had held her while she went into another seizure. Chase was disconnecting her from an IV as House was reaching for a pulse at her neck when the alarms began to sound form the machines that were monitoring her heart.

"She's crashing!" House declared. "Doctor, great to see you. Where would we find something that resembles a defibrillator?"

The Doctor froze in horror for a moment as Cameron raced over to help the others. Lucky, the TARDIS knew exactly what needed to be done. A table extended from the wall beside Rose's bed which had both something that very much resembled the defibrillator that House had asked for as well as the air bag to help with respiration.

Cameron grabbed the bag and began to begin the pulses of air as House reached for the paddles and glance at the mechanism to see how to charge the damn thing. But it seemed that the ship was going to take care of that. A little number on the screen read "Charging, 300."

House nodded to himself as he called, "Clear," he placed the paddles on the now bare skin that Chase had exposed by tearing her shirt. Everyone backed away as a pulse jarred her body. But the alarms still rang out.

House glanced at the screen again and saw that it was charging again. "Clear!"

Another pulse. This time, the alarms change to a rhythmic beating. Chase reached up and checked her pulse physically and found that it was once again steady.

He nodded as everyone else let out a sigh. House simply set the paddle back on the table and limped away; thinking to himself.

The Doctor was finally broken from his trace as he realized how close he had just come to losing her. He practically collapsed right where he stood as the weight of it all hit. He staggered over to her side and leaned heavily on the bed as he looked down at her face, wishing beyond anything that he could hold her and have her hold him in return.

The others watched as unbidden tears began to roll down the Doctor's face. He didn't even seem to notice that he was crying. He was completely lost in staring at Rose; lost within his own thoughts and fears.

"Ok, so not Anthrax," House stated.


	9. Discoveries

A/N: Yay for reviews! Keep em coming. So here we go, chapter 9. There may be so delay in getting chapters out for a little while. I have finals in school and work and a vacation coming up. But I promise I will be working on it as often as I can and should be back into a regular swing by next month.

Hope you enjoy!

**Discoveries**

Grissom's phone rang again. He thought this time it had to be General O'Neill saying that he was almost there. But when he checked the ID it was Brass again. "Grissom," he answered.

"I certainly hope for your sake that you're right about that guy because there's been another one," Brass announced.

"Another murder?" Grissom asked.

"Yes. Same old age, same bloody puncture marks on the chest. I think we might have a serial on our hands Gil. Again there's the ID on the person that doesn't match the victim."

"Where is the body?"

"Laundry room of the Tangiers. Right under our noses."

Grissom swore silently before we made his way to the door. "Alright. Don't let anyone near the body. I'm on my way down." he announced as he opened the door and hung up his phone. He looked over his shoulder at Sara and said. "You stay here with this one. It looks like our Wraith has struck again. I need to try and keep this one covered up as well."

Sara nodded as Grissom left the room, closing the door once again behind him.

As he was on his way down, his phone rang again. This time it was O'Neill. "Grissom."

"Grissom. Hey we're in Vegas. We'll be there in a few," O'Neill's voice said.

"Good. Better hurry. There's been another and I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to keep people out of this."

"Doh! Alright. We'll be there soon," and then the line was dead.

When Grissom arrived on the scene, there was only one officer down there and he was no where near the body. He was standing a good long ways away, behind the crime tape.

"Where's Detective Brass?" Grissom asked, glad to see that no one was near the body, but also worried about Brass's absence.

"He said he had some thing to take care of," the officer answered. "He told me to wait for you and make sure that no one, not even another officer got near it until you said so."

"Good," Grissom answered. Though he was still a little worried about where Brass might have disappeared to. "Is this room cleared?" Grissom asked.

"Yes sir."

"Good. You can go outside and make sure no one enters this room without asking me first, alright?"

"Yes sir," and the officer walked out the door.

Grissom went over to the body that was once again covered by a sheet and pulled the sheet back. It was female this time. Again, extremely aged and had the five bloody puncture marks through her shirt. It looked like she was wearing a hotel uniform. It was possible that she was a worker here. There didn't really seem to be any connection between the two victims other than they were both inside the same hotel.

It made sense that the suspect could be one of the guests, so the Wraith could still be that Dr. House from earlier. But Grissom was beginning to wonder if maybe it wasn't another worker at the hotel. A cleaning lady or a bell boy would have access to the entire hotel without any second thought. It might be difficult for one of the guests to get away with coming down here to the laundry room.

But if it wasn't Dr. House, then who was it?

* * *

"Alright, we know it's not meningitis, not Yellow Fever, and not Anthrax. What do we have left?" House asked his team.

There was silence. "Come on people. Cameron, anything from the history?"

"The only places that were on Earth and not in the future were Ireland 1930 and Beaver Island in Lake Michigan at… What year was it?" she asked the Doctor who was still hovering over Rose's bed.

"2005," he answered.

"So last year," House said. He thought about it for a little while. "How long were you on the Island?" he asked.

"About a week."

He thought for another minute before asking. "Alright, let's say this was fungal. What could it be?"

"Fungal? With these severe of symptoms?" Foreman questioned.

"Yes. Now what could it be?"

"Candidiasis?" Cameron suggested.

"No. Next," House stated.

"Histoplasmosis?" Foreman put forward.

"Not unless she was immunocompromised," House answered.

"Blastomycosis," Chase said; just throwing one out because he hadn't yet.

House thought for a moment and then said. "By George, I think he's got it! Not that you did it on purpose, but it's the best that I heard so far. Fits all the symptoms and can be found in the Great Lakes region," he declared. "Start her on Amphotericin B. When she wakes up, switch to oral Itraconazole." He began to confidently walk out of the med bay.

"House, with as weak as she is, even if it is Blastomycosis, the Amphotericin could kill her!" Cameron protested.

"Well, as usual, either we treat her with something that _may_ kill her or we don't treat and she _will_ die," he stated flatly. Turning to the Doctor he said, "Doctor, I leave the final decision up to you. Either possibly save her, or definitely kill her. But it _is_ Blastomycosis and the only way to treat someone this far advanced is with the Amphotericin. Personally, I don't care what you do."

The Doctor stared at House for a moment, seeing how incredibly certain the man was that he had solved this case. If this was the only option left, then that was the course he was going to have to take. He and Rose had gotten out of plenty of close calls; if this treatment had a narrow chance of saving her, he was confident that it would. "Do it," he said firmly.

House nodded and then looked at his team to start the treatment. Foreman was the one who left to go find the drugs.

House turned to the rest of his team as he glanced as his watch. "Not bad. Looks like we have only missed the first hour of the conference, so nothing more than those air heads mingling and swapping lies about their accomplishments. We need to get in there though." He turned to the Doctor and said, "Foreman can stay here until she's improved. If she doesn't, he knows how to contact us."

The Doctor nodded and sat down beside Rose once again as he awaited the other to return with the treatment.

House turned without another word and left. Chase and Cameron hesitated for a moment, not sure what they should say. The Doctor solved the problem for them. "Thank you for your help. You better get going now so you don't miss your conference," he said, never once taking his eyes off of Rose.

"You're welcome," Cameron said as she followed a quickly retreating Chase out the door.

* * *

"Greg?" Grissom said into his phone. He had just called his newest field CSI. "I need your help down here at the Tangiers. Just got a second murder and Sara and I could use all the help we can get on this one."

"Sure thing!" Greg answered. "But I thought that Warrick was already down there."

"No; I sent him to help Catherine. You're the only other one that I can call in on this one."

"What about Nick? I don't think he's got a case right now."

"Sorry; just you, me and Sara allowed on this one. We're the only ones with the… unique qualification with dealing with the case," Grissom answered.

There was a slight pause before Greg said, "Ah. Gotcha. I'll be down there in a few."

"Good; head on up stairs to the first scene where Sara is. O'Neill will probably be arriving about the same time as you and he'll come down to the second scene with me. Ok?"

"You've got it, Boss," and he hung up the phone as he headed over.

Grissom hung up on his line and returned to the new body and looked her over. He noticed that there was a worker's ID pinned to her shirt. He pulled out his latex gloves and put them on before removing the pin from the woman and examined it. There was a photo of her beside her name. Once again, he set about comparing the figure that lay before him and the young women in the picture he held.

The woman in the picture seemed to be no more than 25. The woman on the floor looked like she must be over a hundred. But, despite the age, he was able to see distinct similarities. The same facial structure. The same eye shape and even eye color. The hair length was even the same as in the photo even if it was now white instead of brown. There became no question in Grissom's mind, this was the same woman.

He shook his head, trying to imagine what it would be like to have the life drained out of you. Was it painful? It must be. Aging normally was a painful enough process; to have to go through it as rapidly as this must be excruciating.

Just then there was a sound from the back of the room. Grissom looked up but didn't see anything. "Hello?" he asked as he stood up. _The officer did say the room was cleared, didn't he?_ Grissom began to ask himself.

His last experience with SG-1 hadn't taught him the value of carrying his weapon. He knew that he should, but he just couldn't get used to it. Now he stood in the room alone, with noises of movement in the back, wondering if maybe he should have paid attention to the lessons that life had been throwing at him. Right now, he would love to have a weapon on him.

"Is anyone there?" he asked, hoping that there would be no response.

There was no verbal announcement, but Grissom was sure that he heard more sounds of movement. He froze for a moment longer as he thought what the best course of action would be. He slowly reached for the radio that he had on his belt to radio the officer that was, hopefully, just outside the door.

Slowly, he unclipped it and brought it up. Just as he was about to press the talk button, something hit him from the side.

A body rammed into him and sent him to the ground as the radio flew out of his hand in the opposite direction. Somehow, he managed to roll out from under his attacker and came to a crouch a few feet away from his attacker. He watched as a man pushed himself up off of the floor and spun around to face him.

He looked like an average, middle aged man in about his late 30's with blond hair. He was wearing a hotel uniform and wore a hotel ID badge much like the deceased woman. The thing that was strange about him was his skin had the slightest hint of blue to it, almost like he was suffocating. Also his eyes were slightly yellow.

Grissom glanced towards the radio that was now on the other side of the room and back to his attacker. The man eyed him for a moment before he once again launched himself at the CSI. Grissom jumped up and tried to fend off this new attack but the other was too strong. Grissom grabbed a hold of the man's right arm which was reaching for his chest. He wasn't sure what would happen if he let this man grab him, but he was sure that it was not going to be pleasant.

There were a few moments of silent struggling as the attacker tried to break Grissom's hold on his arm while Grissom used every last bit of strength he had to keep the other from touching him. Grissom heard himself calling to the guard that was supposed to be right outside the door, but no one came. Apparently the officer didn't stick around.

Just as Grissom was sure that he wasn't going to fend the man off another moment, the door burst open as O'Neill and Sheppard burst through. "Hey!" O'Neill yelled at the attacker as he brought his Zat up.

The attacker had his back to the door but as soon as he heard it open, he gave up his struggle and spun himself around, throwing Grissom between himself and the newcomers right as O'Neill fired. Grissom crumpled to the floor as the other took off towards the back of the room. Sheppard pelted after him as O'Neill checked Grissom.

"Damn, that wasn't supposed to happen," O'Neill said as he reached the CSI's side. Grissom was stunned, but still conscious. He was trying to bring himself back around as O'Neill spoke to him.

Dimly he shook his head and attempted to find his breath to make a response but he felt himself drifting further into unconsciousness. Just before he finally blacked out, he heard Sheppard come back saying, "I lost him. There must some exit back there that I can't find. He's not here."

"Was he it then?" O'Neill asked.

"Oh yeah; not only is that our Wraith, it's an old friend of ours… Michael."


	10. Awakenings

**A/N: **no, I didn't die. Finally here is chapter 10 and the following chapters, though not going to be everyday, will be coming regularly.

Thanks for the reviews and interest so far… I hope that you keep reviewing and continue to enjoy it.

**Awakenings **

"Alright, McKay, Beckett, your going to check out that first body," O'Neill said as they walked into the hotel. "Sheppard, you're with me to check out the new one."

"How come Sheppard goes with you?" McKay asked. He didn't very much like the idea of going off without at least one of the trained military officers.

"Relax McKay. That body has been up there for hours and when have you heard of a Wraith coming back to someone they have already killed?" Sheppard said.

"Which means there's no reason for both of you to go together," McKay argued.

"Just do what I say, huh?" O'Neill said as he made his way towards the elevators.

"Is there anyone with the first body?" Beckett asked.

"Yes, Sara Sidle. She's one of the CSI's who knows about everything so don't worry about cover stories. I want you two to make sure it is a Wraith we're dealing with and anything else you might be able to figure out." O'Neill answered as he hit the down arrow on the elevator. Sheppard reached over to the one next to them and hit the up arrow for the other two.

A moment later, O'Neill and Sheppard's lift arrived. "And try not to get into trouble, ok?" O'Neill said as the door slid shut on them.

"And what are we supposed to find out?" McKay asked. "We already know that it's a Wraith, we saw the pictures. What more are we supposed to do?"

"Maybe the CSI's have figured something out about who it might be," Beckett suggested as the elevator arrived for them. They waited as several people exited before they got on.

"Right, like a couple of criminalists are going to be much help in tracking down a Wraith. This is completely pointless," McKay complained.

"Rodney, I know it's hard for you, but please could you shut up?" a very irritated Beckett said. "There is a Wraith loose on Earth and it's partly my fault. If I hadn't come up with that retro-virus, then it never would have been able to make it to here, let alone be able to blend in."

McKay looked hurt at Beckett's outburst. Beckett was normally a very quiet and tolerant person, but clearly he was rather upset about this whole thing. "You… you're not responsible for this," McKay said awkwardly. "That virus had the possibility to wipe out the Wraith threat. You couldn't have been able to predict what would happen."

Beckett smiled slightly. "Thanks Rodney, but I think that I like it better when you're being annoying rather than attempting to be nice. It doesn't suite you."

Just then they arrived at their floor and exited the elevator. Stepping out, it was easy to see which room it was that they needed to go to by the crime scene tape that was around the door. They strode over and slowly opened the door.

"Hello?" McKay said as he poked his head through.

"May I help you?" Sara asked, quickly coming over to the door to block their entrance if they turned out to be people who shouldn't be there.

McKay just looked at her for second, obviously ogling; Beckett picked it up from there. "You must be Sara Sidle. We're here with General O'Neill, he asked us to come up and check out the body while he went to see the other one."

Sara glared at McKay briefly before opening the door the rest of the way and gave Beckett a smile. "Of course. I'm glad you're here. It's been kind of creepy hanging out with this guy. I've seen a lot of dead bodies, but this is the first one that had its life sucked out of it," she said as she led them over to where the body was.

"Aye, it is a bit of a shock the first time you see it," Beckett said, remembering the first time that he saw a body that had been fed on. He knelt beside the body and pulled back the sheet that was once again covering it.

"If that's not a Wraith attack, then I don't know what is," McKay said.

"So what exactly is a Wraith?" Sara asked.

"An Alien we have encountered in the Pegasus galaxy that feeds upon humanoids to survive," Beckett explained.

"That's what Grissom said, but what are they? What do they look like?" she pressed.

"Well, normally they have a bluish coloring with yellow eyes. Long, angular faces, white hair, sunken eyes. Not very pretty. But the one that did this probably looks completely human," McKay said

"Why?"

"That would be my fault," Beckett said. "I designed a retro-virus to bring out their human DNA as a type of defense weapon against them."

"Huh, that sounds pretty difficult," Sara said, rather impressed with this doctor.

McKay wanted to add something about all of the advancements that he had made with Atlantis, but he was interrupted by Sheppard's voice on his radio.

"McKay, Beckett?" he said.

"Yeah Sheppard," McKay answered.

"We're gonna need you guys down here." There was a moment of silence then, "Bring Sara with you. Turns out that we might have been wrong about a Wraith not returning to the body."

* * *

"Are you sure that we should be going to the conference now? I mean, we're not entirely sure that she's going to be getting better," Chase asked House as they and Cameron walked back towards the Tangiers.

"Even if you're right, she still might have a reaction to the medication," Cameron put in.

"If she does, there's nothing we can do for her. It's too advanced to go with something weaker and if the strong stuff doesn't work, then she's dead anyway," House informed them without so much as a pause.

By now they had reached the casino/hotel and were walking in. Cameron was going to argue when she was cut off by a new person approaching them. "Dr. House, it's good to see you again," Brass said as he approached with a smile, flanked by two officers.

"Why do I get the feeling that I shouldn't be glad to see you again?" House said as he eyed the situation.

"Who is this?" Cameron asked.

"I'm detective Brass, Las Vegas Police Department. I'm afraid I have an arrest warrant for your friend here," he said as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it at House.

"Arrest?!" Chase said, "For what?"

"For the murders of Dr. Manuel Harris and Harriet Rutgrass," Brass informed them as the officers approached and flanked House. One of them pulled out a set of hand cuffs while the other began to recite the Miranda rights.

"Murders? I thought there was just the man?" House said, ignoring the recitation as his hands were being pulled behind his back and cuffed together. One of the officers handed the cane to Brass. "And isn't this cruel and unusual punishment, taking a cane away from the cripple? What happened to innocent until proven guilty?" he demanded.

"Sorry, can't let you have a weapon, especially after already committing two murders. Wouldn't want you to have to another to that list," Brass said with another smile. "Just looking out for you."

The officers began to propel House back towards the exit following Brass with Chase and Cameron dazedly wandering behind. House was limping heavily without the aid of his cane and was making the going very slow. He turned his head and looked at his two ducklings.

"Cameron, get to that conference and Chase, go tell the Doctor what's going on," he demanded.

They both stopped and watched as House was taken out and placed into the back of a waiting police cruiser. Today certainly was shaping out to be a very interesting day.

* * *

"You alright?" O'Neill asked Grissom as he began to come around again.

Blinking, Grissom nodded as he tried to sit up. O'Neill reached down and helped him to sit.

"Thanks," Grissom said as he put a hand to his head. He had a killer headache. "So that's what those things do," he said.

"Yeah, sorry about that," O'Neill said.

"Not your fault. I'm just glad that those things just stun on the first shot."

"Trust me, it's something that we have all been glad of at one point or other," O'Neill said as Sheppard walked back over. "Find anything?" he asked him.

"There's an exit hidden back there behind one of the dryers. He must have slipped out that way," he answered.

"That must be how he got back in here after the officer cleared the area. At least, I would like to think that he cleared it before leaving me alone in here," Grissom said.

"Well, at least now we know who we're dealing with and what he looks like," Sheppard said.

"Who's Michael?" Grissom asked as he was started to remember what it was that Sheppard had said when he had blacked out.

Sheppard shook his head as he answered. "Someone who was supposed to be dead. I watched the Wraith ship fire on the surface where he was supposed to have been."

"Yeah, why is it that our arch enemies always seem to be able to get away?" O'Neill asked.

"Probably the same reason that they are never able to kill us," Sheppard answered.

"Ah, right," O'Neill nodded.

Just then they heard more people enter the room. "What happened?" Sara asked as she saw Grissom still sitting on the floor, hand still pressed to his throbbing head. She quickly crossed the room to kneel beside him.

"The Wraith returned and nearly got Grissom here. Accidentally zatted him while trying to get the Wraith," O'Neill explained.

"Oh and guess what?" Sheppard said as McKay and Beckett entered. "Our Wraith… it's Michael."

"Of course it is," McKay exclaimed as he threw up his hands.

"Michael?" Sara asked.

"Aye, he was the first Wraith that we tested my retro-virus on," Beckett explained.

"He's been popping up ever since and always giving us a world of trouble," Sheppard continued.

"Retro-Virus?" Grissom asked.

"The Wraith are not human, don't even look like it. But since the have been feeding from humans for so long, they began to incorporate human DNA into their own. I developed a retro-virus that was designed to eradicate the other strands of DNA and leave just the human."

"So that's why he looked mostly human than," Grissom started.

"Mostly?" McKay asked.

"He had a slight bluish tint in his skin and his eyes were yellowish."

The three Atlantis members exchanged a look before Beckett said. "That shouldn't happen. Either he's developed an immunity to the virus, or he's run out of it."

"Run out?" Sara asked.

"Aye, once the retro-virus is used it requires regular treatments to continue to work," Beckett explained.

"So this is good," McKay said. "It's going to be a lot harder for him to hide."

"But he's also going to have even more of the Wraith abilities, such as fast regeneration, able to affect the mind, and telepathy. What he losses in disguise, he gains in arsenal," Beckett said.

"Alright, you guys work on how we might track him down, I'm going to contact Carter and see if they have made any progress in contacting the Asgard," O'Neill said as he left the room.

"We'll before we do that, how about we introduce ourselves?" Sara said.

"Right, sorry. I'm Dr. Carson Beckett, and this is Dr. Rodney McKay." Beckett said.

"Colonel John Sheppard," he said shaking first Sara and then Grissom's hand.

"Gil Grissom and this is Sara Sidle," Grissom answered as he shook Sheppard's hand.

"Alright. Now let's see if we can track down our Wraith… again," Sheppard said.

* * *

"What do you mean, arrested?!" the Doctor yelled at Chase.

"I have no idea what's going on. All I know is that some detective came with an arrest warrant and took House away. He told me to go and tell you."

"What the bloody hell does he want me to do about it?"

"How am I supposed to know? I'm just a doctor who is unfortunate enough to work for a psychopath that managed to get himself tangled up in some type of B sci-fi situation. I don't know what he was thinking when he told me to tell you. I've just been programmed over the last several years to ask how high whenever he says jump!" Chase fumed.

The Doctor was about to say something back when Foreman interrupted him. "Sorry to break this up, but she's awake," he announced with a smile.

Glancing at Chase and then back to Foreman, the Doctor froze for a moment before it dawned on him exactly what Foreman had just told him. He quickly moved past the two and rushed back into the med bay where Rose was now sitting up in her bed.

"Rose?" he asked as he quickly crossed over to her.

"Hello," she said, smiling at him.

"You… you alright then?" he asked, feeling incredibly awkward all of a sudden.

"Yeah, much better. You?"

"Fantastic!" he said as he covered the last few steps in flurry and caught her in a huge hug.

She was laughing as she said, "I fine, really."

"Oh Rose, I was so scared," he admitted to her.

"I was too. I knew you were nearby, but I couldn't wake up," she said, returning his embrace weakly.

"What happened?" she asked as he finally pulled away.

"Believe it or not, you had a perfectly normal, non-alien disease," he answered with a grin.

"You mean I got sick and it wasn't because of some megalomania alien or something?" she asked, returning his grin.

"It was a fungal infection," Foreman said as he came up beside her, reaching for her wrist to begin checking her vitals again.

"And who are they?" she ask the Doctor, eyeing both Chase and Foreman.

"They work for Dr. House," the Doctor explained. "I asked him to help."

"Dr. House? The guy who helped us with the Glerth a while back?"

"Yup."

"I'm Dr. Eric Foreman, this is Dr. Robert Chase," Foreman said.

"Ok, I think there are way too many doctors around here," Rose said shaking her head.

"I hate to break up the happy reunion but what about House?" Chase said.

"What about him?" the Doctor said.

"He's been arrested for something he didn't do. I know that you felt like he owed you already for this, but the man just saved her life. Don't you think you could at least pretend to care?"

"Arrested?" Rose asked.

"Yeah, the great and wonderful Dr. House got himself arrested for murder. And I'm not sure exactly what he wants me to do about it."

"You could start by finding out who the real murderer is," Rose said strongly. "After all, he did just save my life and he saved both mine and yours a while back."

The Doctor rolled his eyes at the reminder. He knew that he was going to have to help, but he hated how he had to leave Rose again now that she was finally getting better.

"Fine, I'll go poke around," he relented. "Do you know where these murders were supposed to have happened?" he asked Chase.

"I know that there were police sealing off one of the floors in our hotel. I would bet that would be a good place to start."

"Alright. Rose, you going to be alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You go and help House."

He nodded and reached for her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before turning back to Chase. "Alright you stay here with Dr. Foreman and look after Rose. I'll go and check things out."

"You don't want some help?" Foreman asked.

"No," he said flatly as he walked out of the room.

* * *

"Look, if you want an alibi just go ask my team. I've been with them all morning," House said. He was getting rather frustrated about this whole interrogation thing.

"Oh, I will," Brass said. "But first I'd like to know why you lied?"

"Everyone lies…" House said automatically. "But what was it I was supposed to have lied about this time?"

"You told Grissom that you had never met the deceased, Dr. Harris. But I did some checking. Turns out that Dr. Harris worked at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital about a year ago. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that where you work?"

"Just because we worked in the same building, doesn't mean that we ever met." House answered. "Besides, ask anyone there, I'm a jerk. I don't attempt to socialize with my so called collogues. I barely even see my patients."

"And you don't find it odd that you never met a man who was the surgeon in for several of your patients operations. And that suddenly the same man turns up dead in Vegas at the same time as you?"

"No, it just sounds like my luck," House grumbled.

"Dr. House, I don't think you seem to realize what position you're in here. You're facing a double homicide and you're sitting there cracking jokes."

"Hey, you're the one who's wasting time with someone who didn't have anything to do with these murders while the real killer is still out there. I didn't do it. That's all you're going to get out of me."

"So you can't explain how it is that you got here four hours before your flight?"

"No, that I definitely can't explain," he said. He really didn't have a clue how that worked other than he got in an alien ship and was practically instantaneously transported across the country.

* * *

"So no go then?" O'Neill asked over the phone to Carter.

"Afraid not sir. The Asgard just can't come out here right now. We're on our own for this one."

"Yeah, well it was worth a shot. I think I want you and the rest of SG-1 out here after all. We're gonna need as much help as we can get on this one I think. We'll worry about a cover later. Right now we just need to capture this damned thing."

"Yes sir. We'll head out right away."

"See ya soon," he said as he hung up the phone.


	11. Crossing Paths

**Crossing Paths**

Greg arrived on the scene just as Sara and the other two were headed into the basement. He thought about calling Sara to tell her he was on his way up, but decided to just pop in. Grissom hadn't given him any idea what this was all about other than it was possibly alien in nature. He was immensely curious about the situation and didn't even want to pause a second to pull out the phone. But of course that meant he was in for a bit of a surprise when he walked into the room.

The hallway leading up to the hotel room was completely deserted. It felt kind of weird entering such a quiet crime scene. Usually there were officers and sometimes paramedics crawling all over the place. It was clear which room he needed to go to due to the crime scene tape sectioning off the door.

As he approached, he noticed that the door was slightly ajar, but it didn't seem out of place to him. After all, Sara was in there with a decomposing body, it wasn't surprising that she needed to get at least some air flow going.

"Hey Sara, the help has arrive…" he said as he pushed the door open but came up short as he realized that it wasn't Sara in the room at all.

A man was kneeling over the body, holding the sheet up which obscured Gerg's view of it. The man was dressed all in black with a black leather jacket holding some strange looking blue penlight.

"Who are you?" Greg asked.

Dropping the sheet back into place, the man stood and grinned at the criminalist. "I'm sorry. I was called in on a possible infectious disease problem," he said as he pulled something from his pocket. He opened it up and flashed a piece of paper to Greg. It seemed as though he was from the CDC, but that didn't make much sense. Greg was positive that Grissom would have ensured that nothing about this case had gotten out since he obviously though it might be Stargate related. So why was there a man here from the CDC then?

"I'm sorry Doctor…?"

"Smith," the man supplied quickly.

"Right, Dr. Smith. I'm afraid that we haven't yet cleared this scene. You're going to have to wait."

"I don't think that's such a good idea. This body could be highly contagious."

"Right, I promise that I will take every precaution and that when it comes time to moving it, I'll let you know. But I am going to have to ask you to leave now," he said strongly.

The man looked at him for a moment before Greg could see him visibly decide to switch tactics. "Alright, you really don't know what it is that you're dealing with here and I'm probably the only one who is going to be able to sort this out for you. So how about you let me finish looking things over and move on my merry way, going to save the world yet again, and then you can get back on with your boring little life."

"What are you talking about?" Greg asked.

"I'm not from the CDC; but I promise that I am here to catch whoever did this for two reasons. The first is that one of my friends was arrested for this murder, and I know he didn't do it. The second I have just discovered, is that this is something far beyond you and you're going to have to trust me to do this."

"Beyond me? Where are you from? SGC, NID? I have the clearance needed to be here." Greg was sure that this was just another person from a federal organization who was sent to investigate. Obviously this man didn't know that a Las Vegas criminalist was capable of having some of the highest security clearance in these matters in the country.

"SGC? I know that name…" the man thought for a moment. "Is it that late already…?" he seemed to ask himself as he continued to ponder.

"Where are you from?" Greg asked again.

"Just a second. Are you involved in the… Stargate program?" he asked. It seemed as if he had to really think hard about the name that he needed.

"Yes," Greg answered and was about to ask his question a third time when the other continued to go on talking. But it seemed as if he was carrying on a conversation with himself more than anything.

"That's right! It's 2006. The Stargate has been active now for nearly ten years! How could I have missed that? I knew that I didn't have to worry about those Goa'uld thanks to the brilliant Americans and the Stargate; but how did a Wraith make it all the way out here? They should never have been able to find this galaxy; I thought I made sure of it…"

"Whoa. How about we slow down a second? What are you ranting about?" Greg demanded.

"Is there anyone else here from the SGC? I need to talk to… What was his name? Hammond? Or was it O'… O something?"

"From what I know, General Hammond used to be in charge of the SGC. Now it's General O'Neill. And I think that he was on his way here last I knew."

"O'Neill, that's right! He becomes very well known in your history once the Stargate finally goes public. Get a hold of him, I need to see him," he said.

Greg eyed this man for a minute. He wasn't sure if this was just some nut job or if he might really be someone worth listening to. Either way, General O'Neill was probably going to want to question him anyway. He pulled out his phone and punched up Grissom.

It was several rings before his boss answered. "Grissom? Is O'Neill here yet?" he asked.

"Yeah Greg, where are you?" Grissom asked.

"Oh, I'm upstairs in the first crime scene, chatting with some guy who seems to know a lot about the Stargate program and is demanding to speak with O'Neill."

There was a pause on the other end before Grissom came back. "We'll be right up."

* * *

"How many times do I have to tell you? I didn't murder anyone today!" House was getting very frustrated. He had been asked the same questions over and over again by this detective Brass. The man was an idiot, House thought. It seemed like he thought if he asked the questions enough times, he would eventually confess to everything just to get him to shut up. 

"You answer my questions until I believe the answer," Brass told him.

"For the love of God! I didn't kill either of those people. You obviously can't prove that I did or I would be locked in a cell right now. And the only reason that you even suspect me is because I have an overly curious mind that wants to know everything which brought me to your crime scene… After the crime was committed I might add. I wasn't even in town when the first murder took place!"

"But you can't prove that. You can't even tell me how it was that you got here, and that sounds a little odd to me. Why wouldn't a grown man, a doctor at that, not have the slightest idea of how he got from one side of the country to the other?"

House sat silently for a moment. He knew it… he had just known that agreeing to help the Doctor was going to wind him up in trouble again. Last time it was his sanity that came into question; this time he was arrested for murder. How in the hell did he ever get mixed up with that man anyway? He thought.

"Look, I'd tell you, but you wouldn't believe me. If you want to know what's going on, I'd suggest you find my team and question them. They can tell you that I was with them during the time of the second murder and hadn't arrived yet for the first. They might even be able to get you in touch with a man that can explain my arrival here. Personally, I'm wondering why he isn't here already."

"Right, so I find your team, who has probably already been couched to lie for you and some mystery man to tell me how you miraculously got here. Sounds like a plan. In the mean time, how about you just hang out here. I'm sure this will all be cleared up shortly," Brass said with heavy sarcasm as he moved to leave the room.

House rolled his eyes, "And I thought I was the sarcasm king," he muttered to himself as he pulled his bottle of Vicodin from his pocket.

Brass snatched the bottle from House as he walked by, pausing to read the label. "Vicodin, some pretty strong stuff you got here," he commented.

"Yeah, it's like I must have some pretty bad pain or something," House quipped back indicating his leg.

"Sorry, I think I'll need to take this to the lab and make sure you're not taking something other than what is prescribed to you. I would just love to add use of controlled substance to your list of crimes," Brass said as he continued to walk out of the room with the pills in hand.

"Hey! Cruel and unusual! You take the cripple's cane and his pain meds?! That's just sick and wrong!" House yelled after him as the door closed.

* * *

"Chase, I think that we should just stay out of this one," Foreman told his colleague. 

"Our boss has just been arrest for something he didn't do, for once, and you want to just sit back and do nothing?" Chase said, walking back to Foreman.

"There's not a whole lot that we can do," Foreman said.

"We're on an alien ship; we just saved the life of the same alien's girlfriend… We have witnessed and even worked with the most advanced technology that anyone on Earth has ever seen and we are miles away from someone who gives a care what we do… And you just want to sit pretty and do nothing!? Where is your sense of adventure!?"

"Sense of adventure? I think that I have used that up by even admitting to myself that this is not just a dream. I realize where I am and what has already happened to me today and I also realize that we are way out of our league."

"Excuse me," a female voice said from behind them. They both jumped and turned to see Rose standing in the doorway, glaring at them.

"You shouldn't be out of your bed," Chase admonished as he hurried over to her. He tried to get her to go back to the room she just left but she clung to the door frame and firmly shook her head.

"No, I'm fine. And I am not getting back into bed. I have been there enough today," she said firmly.

"You have been through a lot and your body needs time to recover. You really should allow yourself the rest you need," Foreman told her.

"Yeah, I'll rest when you two stop arguing. I mean, how's a girl supposed to rest when there are a couple of idiot doctors squabbling in the next room?"

Chase and Foreman exchanged a slightly embarrassed look before Chase said, "We're sorry. We shouldn't have been arguing like that."

"No you shouldn't. You should be out there trying to find out what's going on with your friend is what you should be doing."

"The Doctor told us to stay here and take care of you," Foreman said, eyeing Chase as he said it.

"No, he just told you two to look after me… he never said that it had to be here," Rose said with a grin.

"But we wouldn't be looking after you very well if we allowed you to out of your bed. As doctors, we know that you need to be resting right now. You just came out of a coma and you're still slightly feverish. There is no way that you should be going out like this," Foreman continued to tell her.

"And there is no way that I am going to be left behind on this one. For once there is a perfectly normal, non-alien crime going on and I'm stuck here in the TARDIS with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum? I don't think so," she said as she pushed past Chase and began heading for the exit.

"Rose, we can't let you go out," Foreman said as he stood in her way.

"And what are you going to do to stop me then? I'm betting you don't have anything like a sedative on you and the Doctor would kill you if you tried to force me to do anything I didn't want to."

"Unless it was for your own good," Chase pointed out.

"Of course, that's if he believes you over me," Rose said with a smirk as she crossed her arms and regarded the two doctors blocking her path.

Chase and Foreman exchanged another glance. Yeah, they were both afraid of the Doctor. Not just because he was an alien, but, well, he was just so alien.

"What do you plan on doing?" Chase asked her.

She smiled at them, realizing that she had just won. "Well there were two murders, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," Chase answered.

"And you know where the first was, and the Doctor is already poking about that one. How about we find out where the second was and we can save him time by checking that one out?"

Chase looked at Foreman who only shrugged. He turned back to Rose and said, "Alright. But we're going to take it slow and you need to let us know the instant that you aren't feeling well."

Rose grinned. "Of course," she answered and made her way to the door. Chase and Foreman followed in her wake, somewhat reluctantly.

Cameron was not being much use at the conference. She had already sat through two lectures and, despite the fact she had taken notes, she couldn't have even told someone what either lecture had been about. Her mind was definitely elsewhere.

She wanted to be there since it was what House had told her to do, but at the same time, she felt she need to be doing something. This sitting through lectures, that normally she would find interesting but today were more annoying than anything, just wasn't enough to keep her sense of action at bay. She was a doctor, she needed to be out there fixing things… solving problems.

It was partway through the third lecture that she admitted that she couldn't sit there another moment. She quietly gathered her useless notes and made her way out the back of the conference room. She knew that Cuddy was going to have a fit when she found out that none of them went to the conference, but right now there were more important things to be taken care of. Like finding out why House was just arrested for murder.


	12. Who Are You?

**Who Are You?  
**

Sheppard didn't like the sound of another person poking about this scene. Another stranger in on this and he was already dealing with these CSIs and General O'Neill? It was hard enough having to deal with McKay, and he was a member of his team.

He sighed before he decided that it was currently his job to be making the calls. "Alright, Beckett, McKay, you stay here with Sara and see if you can figure anything more out. Grissom and I are going to find O'Neill and head up to the first scene."

"But…" McKay started to protest.

"McKay, don't argue with me. You'll be perfectly fine. You are all three armed and even though Michael obviously went against what I had said about Wraith not returning to a body, I am sure that they definitely won't return a third time."

McKay looked unconvinced but he had learned that there was no point in arguing with Sheppard when he got like this.

"Ready Grissom?" Sheppard asked as he turned to the CSI.

He just nodded in return and then followed Sheppard out on their way to find General O'Neill.

They didn't have to go very far for that. They had barely made it out of the laundry room when the elevator chimed and O'Neill stepped off in front of them.

"What's up?" he asked when he spotted the two coming towards him.

"We were going to find you," Sheppard told him.

"Greg just called me. He is up at the first scene with another man who is demanding to talk to you," Grissom explained.

"NID?" O'Neill asked as he stepped back onto the elevator.

"I don't know. Greg didn't seem to know either," Grissom answered.

"Peachy… Alright I guess we were going to have to go check it out anyway. Let's move out."

* * *

"So who are you?" Greg asked again. 

"Someone who is here to help. My name's the Doctor and you seem to have a Wraith problem here."

"The Doctor huh? What kind of name is that?"

"Mine. Anyway, what do you know about the Wraith?"

"Not much. I have heard the name before, but I don't know anything about them," Greg admitted.

"But you have heard of them then?" the Doctor asked, rather surprised.

"Yeah. Why, shouldn't I have?"

"No. No one on Earth should have found out about the Wraith. Earth is too distant for the Wraith to have been able to get here and they should not have been able to find out where Earth is. And as for you humans, you should never have been able to get out to where they are either. So either I'm wrong about this being a Wraith, and I am never wrong, or something has been going on around here that should never have been able to happen."

"Us humans? So you're not from around here then?" Greg asked.

"You could say that."

"What are you then? Tok'ra? Goa'uld? Jaffa?"

"None of the above, and not something you have ever heard of I'm sure."

"Then just what are you?" O'Neill asked as he stepped into the room followed by Grissom and Sheppard.

"Ah, General O'Neill, I presume?" The Doctor said walking to him and extending a hand.

O'Neill took the offered hand and shook it as he said. "That's me. Now, who are you?"

"Name's the Doctor and I'm here to help," he said as he turned away and headed back over to the body. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began to scan the body once again.

"Alright. How can you help? Where are you from and what are you doing here?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, I can help because I doubt that you know too much of what is really going on around here and I do. As for where I'm from, rather long story and why I'm here, a friend of mine has been arrested for these murders and I came to prove that he didn't do them."

"Arrested? I was not aware that there were any suspects," Grissom said.

"Well then it seems the cops have gotten a little jumpy because they arrested Dr. House about an hour ago," the Doctor answered.

"I told Brass to leave the man alone," Grissom explained to O'Neill who was giving him the look.

"Yeah well, apparently he didn't listen to you," O'Neill said.

"Who is this Dr. House?" Sheppard asked.

"He was snooping about this scene earlier. I was rather suspicious of him at first and had Brass do a background check. I thought that maybe he might be our guy, but obviously we now know that he isn't," Grissom explained.

"I know for a fact that he isn't," the Doctor said. "He was with me during the time of both murders. That and he is just another human. The thing that did this is definitely not from this world," he said with a slight frown as he continued to ponder how it was a Wraith had gotten to Earth.

"We know that," O'Neill said.

"It's a Wraith. Damn thing hid on board one of our ships." Sheppard said.

"One of your ships?!" the Doctor exclaimed. "You have a ship that can travel to the Pegasus Galaxy and back?"

"Yeah, even since we found the ZPM to power the hyperdrive, the Daedalus has been traveling between our galaxies for a little over a year now," Sheppard explained.

"Let me get this straight, you've been to the Pegasus Galaxy?" The Doctor was stunned at the news.

"I've been a part of a team that has been stationed at Atlantis for the last two years," Sheppard continued.

"Atlantis! You have been on Atlantis!"

"You seem to know an awful lot about these things," Grissom said.

"Of course I do! I'm one of the people who helped to build Atlantis!"

* * *

Cameron practically ran right into Chase as she stepped out of the conference room. "What are you doing here?" she asked. 

"Coming to get you," he answered as Foreman and Rose came up behind him.

"Rose! You're alright!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, doing much better now, thanks," she said.

"But what is she doing here?" Cameron asked Chase. "She shouldn't be out of bed so soon."

"You try and keeping her where she doesn't want to be," Chase said.

"She and House would get a long great, both stubborn as rocks," Foreman put in.

"Some how I doubt that that means they would get along," Cameron sighed.

"Hey, are we going to stand around yakking all day about me or can we get on with it?" Rose asked.

"What are we doing?" asked Cameron.

"We're looking to the second murder scene," she said as she began walking again.

"Do you have any idea where this second murder was supposed to have taken place?" Cameron asked.

"No, but I'm sure it won't be hard to find out," she said with as wink as she strolled over to the front desk.

The three doctors paused and watched as she sauntered up to the one of the younger men behind the desk. They could here what it was that she was saying to the man, but it was obvious that she was flirting with him.

"Not bad. Cameron, you could learn a thing or two from her. I bet if you used that method to gather patient's histories we would get to the bottom of things a lot faster," Chase teased.

"I can't believe her," Cameron said, ignoring Chase's comment. "She just had a brush with death and now she's out here flirting her way to information on a murder scene?"

"It sound to me that she probably has to deal with brushes with death a lot while she travels with this Doctor," Foreman said.

"Still, how do you get used to something like that?" she pressed.

They watched Rose for a moment more before she turned and began heading back over as she cast a cute little wave back to the dreamy eyed desk worker behind her.

"That was fast," Foreman said.

"No problem. The second girl was found downstairs in the laundry room. Apparently she was a maid here. Guy over there was so shook up from the news that he needed someone to talk to after he got off work today," Rose said with rolled eyes as she waved a piece of paper with a number on it.

"Nice," Chase said, impressed by the guy's ingenuity.

Rose and Cameron exchanged a look and rolled their eyes as one at the lowness that some men would go to. "Alright, so downstairs we go then," Rose proclaimed as she took off to the elevators.

* * *

"So what, exactly, are we supposed to be looking for?" McKay asked as Beckett began to look over the body with Sara. 

"Any clue as to where Michael might have gone to or what state he is currently in," Beckett answered. "I can tell you from looking at this body that a human Wraith is not able to get near as much energy from a body than a full Wraith is able."

"What? How do you know?" McKay asked as he looked over Beckett's shoulder.

"Just take a look. You've seen bodies attacked by Wraith before. Usually they look far older and emaciated than this."

"Why would that be?" Sara asked.

"I would assume that it's because a human Wraith is no longer able to inject their victim with the same enzyme that a Wraith is able to which makes the victim stronger and able to survive the whole draining process."

"That makes sense," Sara said. "I could see how having the life drained out of you would be very traumatic. And if the Wraith can only extract it while you're still alive, they would need a way to keep you alive as long as possible."

"Exactly," Beckett answered.

"So, what? Now Michael can still kill us but it won't take as long?" McKay blurted out.

"From what Grissom was saying, that might not be true anymore. If he is reverting back to Wraith, then he will have regained the enzyme. But we now know that he was still human when he attacked this woman."

"Is it possible that he just missed an injection and the next time we catch up with him he'll be back to his human self?" Sara asked.

"It's possible. But we were never able to test the retro-virus for an extended period of time. It may just be that he has been developing an immunity."

"And he might have just run out of the stuff," McKay said.

"Aye, that is also possible. And if that's true, then he may want to find more of it."

"Great. So now not only do we have a Wraith loose on Earth, he's going to want to track down the few people here who would be able to gain access to the drug. Which includes me I might add," McKay said.

"But this could be a good thing," Sara put in. "If he is busy tracking down us, then he won't be out killing more innocent people."

"And he'll be that much easier to find," Beckett finished.

"That doesn't make me feel any better," McKay complained as Beckett and Sara exchanged a look before continuing to examine the body.


	13. Crowds

A/N: Ok, here is the updated version of this chapter. After I told my wonderful Beta that I put it up before she had a chance to look at it, she went over it right away. She apparently knows that I am no good at checking my own stuff. So here is the corrected version. Any mistakes now are no longer on my head : )

**Crowds**

There was silence in the room for a moment after the Doctor made his announcement.

"Wait a second, if you were one who helped build Atlantis…" O'Neill began.

"Then you must be an Ancient," Sheppard finished.

"Ancient?" The Doctor mulled the word over in his mind for a moment. "Yeah, I think that was what a few species wound up calling us, so yeah. I guess I am. Though we called ourselves Time Lords."

"If you're an Ancient, why aren't you ascended then?" Sheppard asked.

"Ascended? Wow, I haven't heard that term in a while. Yeah, several of my race ascended in the past, but the Time Lords have since banned it. It was bad enough that my people practically ruled the universe as mortals, but becoming immortal was just too much. That's why the ones who had already ascended had to put up with such tight non-interference rules."

"So, not all of the Ancients ascended then?" Sheppard pressed.

"No, in fact, not even most," the Doctor said rather sadly. "And those who did were no longer considered Time Lords."

"So, it was your people who made the Stargates?" O'Neill said.

"Yup."

"Cool."

The Doctor nodded before he continued, "But what I want to know, is how you were able to get to the Pegasus Galaxy at all? I had tried to make it so you wouldn't be able to. At least not for a long time yet."

"How did you do that?" Grissom asked.

"I tried to hide the information of how to get access other Galaxies' gates as well as the ZPM's which are needed to power it. But apparently I didn't hide them well enough. You stupid apes have a knack for getting into things that are too much for you."

"We also have a natural curiosity which drives us to find answers to what seem to be impossible questions," Grissom said.

"And that's what I love about you," the Doctor said with on of his manic grins. "But really, I need to know what you know about the Wraith," he said suddenly becoming serious once again.

"They evolved from some sorry little life sucking bug, which I had the pleasure of encountering once," Sheppard began. "Now they travel around in massive hive ships, culling the worlds of the Pegasus Galaxy for their food. They have a habit of hibernating for long periods of time while the humans re-grow their population. But when we showed up two years ago, I accidentally wound up waking the Wraith early when I killed their guardian. Now they are entering into mini civil wars with each other due to the lack of food for their entire group."

The Doctor seemed rather upset about the whole thing. "Yeah that sounds like you lot. Just go tramping into a situation that you know nothing about and start killing things and condemn an entire galaxy to death!"

"Hey, she was going to kill me and had already killed my commanding officer. It's not like I had a lot of choice in the matter," Sheppard argued.

"Not in that, but you shouldn't have even been in that galaxy to begin with!"

"Hey! So we went somewhere where we shouldn't have. What's done is done, what are we going to do about this situation here and now?" O'Neill interrupted.

"Is there anything else I should know first?" the Doctor asked.

Sheppard and O'Neill exchanged a look before Sheppard answered, "There's one more thing, but I think you should talk to Dr. Beckett about it. It's really more his thing. He's downstairs with the other body right now."

The Doctor nodded, "Alright then. I'm going to need to talk to him."

"We'll take you down," O'Neill said.

"Ah, General. You do that, I'm going to call Brass and convince him to release Dr. House. Obviously he has nothing to do with this," Grissom said.

"Yeah, good idea."

* * *

"Look at this," Sara said as she pointed to some dirt around the wound on the body. "This dirt is around and even inside the wound. Your Wraith seems to have had some dirty fingernails.

"Aye, I wonder where that came from?" Beckett said.

Sara reached into her kit, which she had brought down with her, and pulled out a small evidence bag and some tweezers. Carefully, she first plucked several pieces of dirt from the wound and placed them in the bag. After sealing it and labeling it, she placed the bag into her kit and pulled out a piece of evidence tape and dabbed it around the area of the wound.

"With any luck," she said as she worked, "we might be able to identify where the dirt came from back at the lab. That might give us some clue as to where our Wraith came from and possibly where he might be returning to."

"Good thinking," Beckett said.

Sara smiled, "That's part of my job."

McKay rolled his eyes and began to wander towards the door. He had just made it to the closed door when suddenly it began to open slowly. McKay jumped to stand against the wall beside the door and signaled to Beckett and Sara.

Sara noticed his flailing arms first and realized that it was because the door was beginning opened. She reached for her gun with one hand as she tapped Beckett with the other. When he looked to her, she nodded towards the door and then began to move silently to where McKay was.

Beckett pulled out his Zat and moved to the wall on the other side of the door. As the door slowly opened, they heard a female voice on the other side with a heavy British accent, "It looks like nobody's here," she said as she pulled the door all the way open.

Sara, McKay, and Beckett watched as a young blond girl entered the room and walked right past them towards the body, she was soon followed by two other men and another female.

"That's weird," they heard the other female saying before she entered the room. "There should be cops or at least crime tape up."

As soon as she had finished saying this, Sara stepped away from the wall and brought her gun to aim on the intruders.

"What are you doing down here?" she demanded as Beckett and McKay also brought up their zats.

"Oh, guess there is someone here then," Rose said as she bit her lower lip.

The other three couldn't think of what they should say.

"What are you doing here?" Sara asked again, more insistently.

But they were spared having to answer when another walked through the door.

"Rose!" The Doctor exclaimed when he stepped through the doorway. "What are you doing out of bed?" he said as he strode over to her while glaring at the three doctors on his way.

"Who are you?" McKay shouted.

"Relax McKay," Sheppard said as he entered the room.

"He's here to help… we think," Jack said as he entered next with Greg coming in silently behind him. "Now who the hell are all of you?" he demanded.

"General, this is my companion, Rose," the Doctor said. "And these three are her doctors. They work for Dr. House."

"Let me get this straight," O'Neill said. "You're the Doctor who has to have another Doctor as well as his three doctors for your friend?"

The Doctor grinned and nodded, "Yup."

"Talk about character bloat," Greg whispered to Sara.

"Well, now that we have that all cleared up. I repeat, what the hell are all of you doing here?" O'Neill said.

"I would like to know as well," the Doctor said as he crossed his arms and stared at Rose.

"Well I wasn't about to let you go off on a regular old murder investigation with out me," Rose answered.

"And you let her go?" the Doctor said as he turned to the other three doctors.

"She didn't really leave us much choice," Chase defended.

The Doctor nodded, "I know what you mean. Never stays where I tell her to," he said and received a playful slap on the arm from Rose for that. "Anyway Rose, this isn't a normal murder investigation after all."

Rose rolled her eyes as she said, "Never is with us, is it?"

"Nope," the Doctor grinned.

* * *

"Brass, I thought I told you to forget about Dr. House?" Grissom said into his phone once he got a hold of Brass.

"So sue me. This guy is definitely hiding something. What have you found?"

"That he is innocent. He has nothing to do with this," Grissom answered.

"That's hard to believe. What makes you so sure?"

"He has an alibi," Grissom answered.

"Then why doesn't he tell me about it?"

"Because he's not supposed to. Look Brass, just trust me on this one. He's got a solid alibi that I have already checked out. You have to let him go."

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line before Brass asked, "What is going on here Gil?"

"I can't explain, but you know how Sara, Greg, and I were called to work a case for the Air Force a while back? Well this is another one of those cases."

There was another short pause before Brass sighed. "Alright, I'll release him. But I still think you shouldn't write this guy off so quickly Grissom. He's hiding something."

"I'm sure that I'll be seeing him again before this is all over. Just don't worry about this anymore Brass. We'll get it taken care of." With that he switched off his phone and headed downstairs again.

* * *

"Sir," Sam radioed as she, Daniel and Teal'c entered the Tangiers.

There was a pause before he answered, "Yeah Carter."

"We just arrived, where are you at?"

"Downstairs in the laundry room. Getting kinda crowded down here but the more the merrier I guess."

Sam exchanged a look with Daniel and Teal'c. Daniel shrugged and Teal'c raised an eyebrow. Shaking her head, she radioed back, "We'll be right down."

* * *

"That's it? You're free to go?" House glared at Brass. "You drag me down here, accuse me of murder, steal both my cane and meds from me, hold me in this boring room and then come back and just simply release me?! No, sorry about all of this sir. No explanations as to why I get to go?"

"Our team has turned up new evidence that points in another direction. You can go now," Brass answered. "Here's your cane back, as for the meds, I'm still going to have them tested."

"You've got to be joking. You find out that you have arrested an innocent man and you are still trying to dig up dirt on him? Sounds like you're just trying to cover your ass."

"Yes, that's exactly right. Or maybe it's just that I don't like you and still don't trust you. But I have my head CSI calling me and telling me that you're not our man and that I have nothing to hold you on. So why don't you just count your blessings and get out of here before I change my mind."

House glared at Brass a second more before he grabbed his cane from him and stood up, making his way angrily to the door. As he reached it he stopped and turned back around. "You realize that this is a lawsuit waiting to happen?"

"Be my guest. You'll find it very difficult to persecute a cop though."

"I like difficult," he said and left before Brass could answer him.

* * *

"Whoa, I see what you mean when you said it was getting crowded down here," Daniel said as he walked in.

"Welcome kids," O'Neill called as he spotted them. "Meet the rest of the gang. You know Greg and Sara," he said indicating them. "And here we have three doctors, a girl and… another doctor," he said, not remembering a single name. "Gang, this is my team. Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c."

"Nice to me you," the Doctor said as he stepped forward. "I'd love to stand around and play some getting to know you games, but right now we have a Wraith that we need to find. And since he's probably not going to blend in to the crowds all that well, it shouldn't be too hard."

"Ah, about that…" Sheppard said.

The Doctor turned and looked at him. "What? What did you do now?"

"It was me, actually," Beckett said. "In our fight against them, I developed a retro-virus that suppresses the Iratus bug DNA and allows the human to take over."

"You what?!" The Doctor said shocked and slightly impressed.

"We needed a way to fight them," Sheppard began to argue. "They are wiping out the entire Pegasus Galaxy."

"So naturally you decide to mess with their DNA and make them more human? Typical."

"Hey, these guys are supposed to be your enemy, not ours," O'Neill said.

"It's not my fault that you got into a place that you shouldn't have. You were never meant to be there. At least not for a very long time."

"Ok!" Rose said. "So things have gone wrong, which they always do. How about we stop arguing about whose fault it is and do something about it!"

"Excuse me," Chase said raising his hand. "What exactly is going on around here?"

The Doctor sighed and said, "Ok, for everyone's clarification let's see if I got this all right…"

* * *

"Is that about the whole of it then?" The Doctor asked after going over everything.

"Sounds about right," Grissom said.

"Great. Now, let's figure out how to find our Wraith friend," O'Neill said.

"It sounds to me that if he is beginning to change back into a Wraith, he would be trying to stay out of sight. That means he's going to be somewhere where there aren't a lot of people but where he can easily get to more people when he needs to feed again," the Doctor said.

"That sounds rather difficult in Vegas. It's basically a city that raises up out of a desert, not many low population areas to hide in," Greg said.

"What about the drainage ditches and sewers?" Sara suggested. "There's practically another city right under our feet that is hidden from eyes yet not hard to pop up and grab a passerby when needed."

The Doctor smiled at her. "Great idea," he said. "What we need is a map of the sewer system and then we can split up and start our search. He'll probably be near here. He wouldn't have wanted to travel very far from the strip I think. Much larger food supply."

"I can get you the map," Grissom said as he headed towards the door while pulling out his phone.

"Fantas…" But the Doctor never got to finish. Right then something struck him in the back of the head, knocking him to the floor.

The small metal object began to release plumes of caustic smoke.

"Smoker! Get out!" O'Neill called.

As the room continued to fill with the blinding fumes, they could hear as more items hit the floor and began to release more smoke.

There were several moments of confusion when the only thing that any of them had to navigate the crowded room by was sound. The military officers were attempting to track down where the thrower of the bombs was as the three doctors were just trying to find a way out.

The Doctor was on the floor, trying to fight against unconsciousness from the blow that he had received as someone tripped over him. He reached out and grabbed the leg of whoever had hit the floor beside him only to see that I was Greg.

Sara and Grissom had found each other but were completely blinded as to what was happening around them. Grissom took hold of Sara's hand and tried to lead them both towards where he thought he remembered the door to be.

They could hear and occasionally see flashing of zats being fired and shouts from the military persons as they attempted to find the cause of the blinding smoke. But mostly the room was a chaos of sound and flashes. There were too many people in the room to distinguish who was friend or foe.

The Doctor let go of Greg and reached into his pocket to pull out his sonic screwdriver. He fiddled blindly with the settings for a moment before he found what he was looking for. He activated it and raised the devise into the air above his head. There was a slightly audible hum that the people the room could feel more than hear. After a few seconds, the gas seemed to be dissipating and everyone froze where they were as they waited for their vision to clear. Blinkingly they all looked around and took stock of what had just happened.

"Is everyone alright?" Sara asked who was still standing next to Grissom, holding his hand with her gun in her other. They had managed to make it closer to the door, but they didn't make it there.

"Nasty bump, but I'll be fine," the Doctor said as he leaned against a support beam that he had been near, rubbing the back of his head. Both Rose and Cameron came to his side quickly. One to comfort and the other to medically check.

The three doctors had stayed close together, but they had actually been heading away from the door rather than towards it.

Foreman went over to check Greg who had knocked his forehead into the floor when he tripped over the Doctor.

As everyone continued to look around, they found that McKay had managed to get himself Zatted and now Chase was seeing to him. Beckett, Teal'c, Sam, Daniel, and Sheppard were scattered about the room, all with Zats in hand.

"What just happened?" Beckett asked. But his question wasn't answered as Sam suddenly said, "Where's General O'Neill?"

Suddenly everyone glanced rapidly around the room. "He had been right next to me before I fell over the Doctor," Greg said from where he still sat on the floor.

Sam, Daniel and Teal'c began to search the room as Sheppard went directly to the back of the room. A moment later he called from where he was, "the back door is wide open and there's a Zat on the ground just outside. Either the General was taken out or he followed someone out."

"And then dropped his zat? Not likely," Daniel said.

"So now Michael has him!?" Sam blurted out.

Everyone exchanged nervous glances before the Doctor said, "Well now we have a more urgent reason to locate the Wraith. He just fed on two people in a short amount of time. It's most likely that he will bring the General somewhere to save for later."

"So I guess it's up to me to get those maps," Grissom said as he once again took off through the door, pulling out his cell phone.


	14. Curitosity Killed the Cat

Curiosity Killed the Cat 

House had managed to make his way back to the Tangiers and was just rounding the corner to the ally where the TARDIS sat. He was on his way inside of the ship to yell at the Doctor for leaving him hanging with the police when he noticed movement near the back of the ally way.

Pausing, he squinted as he tried to see what was going on. He could just make out what looked like a man, hauling what appeared to be a rather heavy dead weight. The man's back was turned to House, so he was unable to see exactly what it was that he was dragging.

He was intrigued, of course. Moving against the wall, House began to move closer to try and get a better look. House watched as the man paused and lowered his weight to the ground as he reached over and lifted a manhole cover from the middle of the ally.

House paused, slightly behind a dumpster at the side of the ally a short distance from where his subject was. He still hadn't gotten a good view of what it was the man had been dragging but as he shifted the cover aside, House glimpsed what appeared to be the shape of another person lying on the ground beside the hole.

Suddenly, the man glanced up and looked around as if sensing he was being watched. House ducked behind the dumpster, not sure if he had removed himself from sight in time or not. As he stood still, listening for sounds of movement, he allowed himself to process what he had just seen. Besides the fact that it appeared that he was witnessing someone dumping a body, there had been something very strange about that man.

It was only an instant that he had seen the man's face, but he was certain that the face had not been altogether human. Sure, there are many medical conditions that could cause a blue tint to the skin and genetic mutations of all kinds could cause a face to look like that. But with the day that he had been having so far, he was pretty sure that this man was not from around here.

Silently, he continued to listen for any evidence that the alien had seen him. But it seemed that he was not noticed as he could hear the sound of the body once again being dragged. He carefully poked his head around the dumpster and watched as the alien lifted the body up and drop it into the recently uncovered hole. As he watched, House noticed that the body that the alien was throwing around was not as dead as he had originally had thought. There was definitely still resistance in the limbs of the man and the skin still had a healthy look to it.

House watched as the alien lowered himself into the hole after the man he had just thrown in. As he disappeared, House moved cautiously towards the hole that was still uncovered. Carefully he approached and glanced down over the edge. All that he could see was a bare, concrete bottom with no one in sight.

Suddenly, the alien appeared at the bottom of the hole. Before House could react, the alien had spotted him and brought some type gun to aim on him and fired. Instantly, he felt a pulse of electricity arc through his body as he felt himself crumple to the ground, losing consciousness.

* * *

"Ok, so while Grissom is getting a hold of those plans, we should break into teams for our search," the Doctor said as Grissom stepped out of the room, cell in hand. "I think four teams would be best. One for each general direction."

"Grissom and I will go together," Sara said.

Raising his hand, McKay said, "I'll go with them."

Sam rolled her eyes, knowing full well the reason McKay wanted to join them and she felt sorry for Sara. Stepping forward, Sam said, "I'll come too," figuring that she might be able to lend Sara a hand keeping him in line.

Chase decided to speak up, "Ah, I'm not sure if we really should be in on this," he said indicating himself and his colleagues. "We're not exactly qualified for this kind of thing."

"Chase, one of their people is missing, they need all the help they can get," Cameron admonished. "It's not like they can call the Las Vegas police in on this one. Whoever is already involved is it."

Chase sighed, "Fine, but we should go together."

"Ah, I'd like to go with Dr. Beckett, if that's alright," Foreman said.

"That's alright with me," Beckett said.

"That sounds fine, but you two need at least one military with you I think," Sheppard said.

"I can accompany them," Teal'c offered

"Good. Alright, I'll go with you two," Sheppard said, indicating Chase and Cameron.

"Rose and I will go together to form the last group," the Doctor said.

"What about Greg and Daniel?" Sara asked.

"I'd like to go with the Doctor, if he doesn't mind," Daniel said, stepping forward.

Rolling his eyes the Doctor said "Fine, but I'm not interested in playing ask the new alien twenty questions."

"Greg, why don't you join us?" Cameron said.

Greg shrugged as he joined their group. "As good as any I guess," he said.

"Alright, as soon as those plans show up, we can sit down and figure out who is taking what direction and the general plan of search," Sheppard said.

Rose decided to speak up, "Shouldn't we start searching for him right away? I mean if this Wraith thing could decided to suck the General's life at any minute, shouldn't we try to find him as quick as possible?"

"Rose has a point," Sam said.

"But just searching blindly in the dark isn't going to help all that much," McKay said. "We need to map out the areas that we are to cover and make sure that we don't miss anything."

"Jack might not have long enough for us to wait around," Daniel argued.

"Alright," the Doctor said. "Our group will start now. I think we'll take a… what do you think Rose, west or east?"

"West," she said promptly.

"Alright, west it is. We'll take a westerly route. That way, we'll at least be covering some area, while the rest can wait here for the plans."

"If you're just going to be going about it haphazard, the rest of us might as well too," Foreman said.

"Haphazard?!" the Doctor started. He was about to launch into how Foreman wouldn't know a scientific approach if it bite him when Rose stopped him.

"Doctor, they just aren't as used to your style as I am," she said softly to him. To the rest she said, "It's worked well for us in the past. We're really pretty good at the guessing thing."

Sheppard decided to just get things going. "Fine, you three go ahead. We'll wait for those plans and map out a search to the east, south, and north. Good luck." He nodded to the Doctor who nodded back and led his group out the back entrance.

Grissom returned as the others were leaving. "I have a city commissioner bringing the plans down right now. He should be here in about fifteen minutes," he announced. He looked around as asked, "Where did the Doctor, Rose, and Daniel go?"

"They just left to start right away," Sara said.

Grissom raised an eyebrow and was about to ask why when Rose suddenly came running back into the room.

"We have a new problem," she said as she held a cane out for all of them to see.

"Is that?" Chase started.

Cameron gasped and raised a hand to her mouth as she muttered, "Oh my God."

* * *

Walking outside, the Doctor glanced up and down the ally that he found himself in, looking for which way he should head. He noticed that his TARDIS was sitting there at the end of the ally. In between him and his ship, he saw the manhole cover moved aside lying in street.

As he moved towards it with Rose and Daniel close behind, he noticed that there was something lying next to the hole besides the cover. Picking up the pace, he made his way over to it and knelt down to examine this new object.

"What's up?" Daniel asked as he came to stand over the Doctor's shoulder. Rose came up to his other side and knelt along side.

Carefully the Doctor reached down and picked up the object of his investigation. It was a cane. Looking it over thoroughly, he finally announced.

"I've seen this cane before," he said almost to himself

"You have?" Daniel asked.

"Yes. This is Dr. House's cane," he announced as he stood up.

"What?!" Rose exclaimed.

The Doctor nodded.

"How did it get here?" Daniel asked.

"I would assume that he brought it here since he can't get very far without," the Doctor said.

"Well if that's the case, where is he now?" Daniel pressed.

"I would think that's obvious," the Doctor said as he handed the cane to Rose. "Looks like our new friend has gotten himself into trouble. You better go in and tell the other's that we think Dr. House has been taken as well."

"What are you going to do?" Rose asked.

"Dr. Jackson and I are going to go after them. You can join one of the other groups. The fact that he now has two people means he won't be as likely to hold out as long as possible before feeding again. One may buy more time for the other, but I would prefer to find them both alive."

Rose nodded, "Right. See you soon," she said and ran back into the hotel laundry room again.

The Doctor turned to Daniel, "Alright, just you and me."

"Seems so."

"After you," the Doctor said as he waved Daniel ahead to go down the hole.


	15. Bad Guy 101

A/N: Alright. I have to appologize quickly here. I just realized that whereever I had a story break where I switched form one group to another, Fanfiction didn't have my triple spaces in. So I now have begun using the page break lines and I will go back and add them in for previous chapters. I think it is pretty sad that I just now realized this when I have been writing fanfiction this way for the past three years. Anyway, sorry about that, Mystica**  
**

**Bad Guy 101**

"He's got House?!" Foreman exclaimed.

"Looks like," Rose said, biting her bottom lip.

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that this waiting for them to get the life sucked out of them is not very helpful. I'm going down there now," Cameron said as she began to march towards the back door.

Chase reached out and grabbed her arm, "Cameron, we would have no idea which way to go and just randomly spreading out is not a very effect way to search."

"And waiting up here doing nothing is an efficient use of our time?" she countered as she shook her arm out of his grip.

"I would have to agree with Dr. Cameron," Teal'c voiced. "It would be better if we began our search now rather than wait."

Sam nodded, "I'm with Teal'c. They might not have very long before Michael decides to start on one of them. We should cut down on that time as much as possible."

"Are we all agreed then?" Sheppard asked. "Do we go now and not wait for the sewer plans?"

He glanced around the room. The only ones who seemed a little reluctant were McKay and Chase. But he had assumed as much from McKay anyway and it seemed that Dr. Cameron had Dr. Chase in hand. "Alright then, let's get moving," he said as each group filed out of the back door to begin their search.

"Dr. Foreman," Rose said as they worked their way out into the ally.

"Yeah Rose?"

"Can I join your group? The Doctor and Daniel went on ahead."

"I still think that you should go back to the TARDIS and lay down," he began but was quick to add once he caught her glare, "But of course since you won't do that, joining us will be fine."

* * *

"Ok, here's the plan," Sheppard was saying as they all gathered around the manhole cover. "The tunnel runs east to west. Now the Doctor said that he was going to head west so I will take my tem in that direction. When we hit the first turn, I'm going to assume that the Doctor and Daniel went on west. I'll take Chase and head north and Cameron and Greg will head south. The rest of you head east. Drs. Forman, and Beckett as well as Teal'c and Rose can continue east. The other group split up and travel south and north from there. Everyone got it?" 

There were nods and voices of affirmation around the group.

"Alright, let's get moving."

* * *

Jack and House came to slowly only to find themselves stuck in a small barred in crevice that appeared to be somewhere underground. 

"Oui! I hate when that happens," Jack groaned as he tried to sit himself up.

"I hope never to have that happen again," House grumbled as he slowly opened his eyes.

Jack managed to get himself sitting up against the wall as he said, "Oh, you kinda get used to it after a while."

"And who might you be?"

"General O'Neill, U.S. Air Force."

"And why would an Air Force General be used to being shot by some futuristic, sci-fi, shocking gun thing?"

"We…ll, let's just say I work for very specified division of the Air Force that sees a lot of this stuff."

"Come on," House said as he finally managed to sit up himself. "I've just been shot by someone who is obviously not all that human and stuck inside some kind of sci-fi story and you can't answer me straight?"

O'Neill looked at him for a moment before saying, "Yeah, guess you're right. I work with a program call Stargate where we have been using a piece of alien technology to travel through wormholes across the galaxy and visit other planets. You were just shot by an alien called the Wraith who kills their victims by sucking the life out of them."

House nodded, "Alright. Now I know what to expect."

"What, you actually believe all of that?" Jack asked.

"Sure. I'll let you in on a little secret; this isn't the first time that I have had my life threatened by an alien. Actually met a few a while ago. There's one that I owed a favor to that is the whole reason I'm caught up in this."

"Huh, you must be Dr. House, I presume."

"Met him too than?"

"Yup."

House nodded to himself as he tried to find a slightly more comfortable position to sit in. It wasn't working all that well. "Alright, so now what?"

"Well, it looks like we could be here a while," O'Neill said as he tested the zip ties that bound his hands and feet.

"Goodie, just what I wanted. Get captured by some sadistic alien, waiting for it to come and suck the life out of me, with some Air Force General in some dank smelly sewer."

"Hey, not a walk in the park over here either," O'Neill said.

"Why are we here any way? If he wants to kill us, why not just get it over with?"

"Probably stocking the fridge. Besides, they never just outright kill ya. Too easy, doesn't give em much of a chance to gloat."

"Right, bad guy 101 huh?"

"Yup."

"Now what?" House asked

"Now we wait either for the bad guy to come swooping in or someone to find us and bust us out. I'm hoping for the second."

"Fifty bucks says that bad guy comes first and threatens our lives," House said.

O'Neill looked over at House before saying, "You're on."

"Confident," House observed.

"So are you."

"Don't have much to lose. We're in Vegas, might as well place bets since there's nothing else to do."

"Well, we're gonna be here a while, might as well get to know each other. So, favorite TV show?" O'Neill asked.

"Well most people would think that it would be General Hospital, but I am really a closet McGyver fan."

"Ugh, that show just made me think too hard," O'Neill said in disgust.

"Alright, what's yours?"

"Well, automatically I would say the Simpsons, but since we're revealing our secret obsessions… I'd have to say Black Adder."

"Ouch, way too British for my taste. But I classify cartoons in an entirely different category. In that one, I would have to say I'm a Ren and Stimpy fan."

"No way, Simpsons all the way."

Just then Michael walked up to just outside the bars saying, "I hope you two have gotten to know each other a little better now that one of you is about to watch the other die," he gloated.

"Doh!" Jack said.

"You idiot!" House said to Jack. "You owe me a fifty."

"Of course I am curious, who is it that I have captured?" Michael asked.

"Ah, I don't think so. You find out who we are, you make a decision on who you should kill first or if you should kill us both now," O'Neill said.

"No offense, but if it means that you're first and not me, I'm all for telling him who we are," House said.

"Gee, thanks," O'Neill said to him.

"It doesn't really matter," Michael said. "I already know who you are. General O'Neill, head of Stargate Command. And Dr. House, doctors' Cameron, Chase, and Foreman's boss."

"Ok," O'Neill said. "Then why ask?"

Michael shrugged and smiled. "Just curious as to what you might actually tell me."

"Sooohoo, right now…?" O'Neill said.

"Right now I let you two continue to chat until I need to feed once again. It seems your friends are making it difficult to be able to sneak out and grab another victim, so I'll need to stretch your usefulness out as long as possible. But I'll let you know, that won't be much longer." With that, he turned and left them alone once again.

"Wow, that was a little enigmatic," House said.

"Ya think?" O'Neill said. "It was good, but not the best that I've seen. The Gou'ald are much better at that sort of thing than the Wraith."

"Yeah, could've used some work, not enough snark," House said sarcastically.

* * *

"So what do you think has happened to them?" Daniel asked as he and the Doctor traversed the tunnels, always heading in a westerly direction. 

"Don't know. Probably just waiting around to be killed. But since he has two now, he may have already fed on one," The Doctor replied.

"Ok, I'm really hoping that you're wrong about that."

"So am I. But you did ask," the Doctor answered.

Daniel eyed the Doctor before saying, "Yes, I suppose I did."

They walked in silence for a little while longer before Daniel couldn't help himself. "So, an Ancient?"

"I knew it," the Doctor said. "I just knew that you wouldn't be able to help yourself. I should have known better than to let the famous Dr. Daniel Jackson come with me."

"What's that supposed to mean?'

"It means that throughout history, you have a reputation for being unable to keep your mouth shut. You always have another question to ask… another theory to defend… another opinion to state. And now you come across the first living member of the race you have devoted your life to studying and I thought maybe you could hold back and just concentrate on saving your friend. But apparently I was wrong."

Daniel was silent for a moment before saying, "Well, not exactly the first…"

"What?" the Doctor said as he came to a halt to eye Daniel.

"Well I have met an ascended Ancient before," he answered.

"Oh, one of those," the Doctor scoffed as he continued once again.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Daniel asked.

"They aren't exactly Time Lords anymore. They forswore that identity when they ascended," he said bitterly. "I am truly the last of my kind," he said more to himself.

"Really? I was under the impression that all of the Ancients either ascended or died from a disease."

"Disease?! Where'd you get that idea?"

"Well, many of the texts that I have come across mentioned how they were battling a disease that spread through out the galaxy.

The Doctor frowned for a moment as he thought about that. He seemed to be miles away when he answered, "Well, I suppose that is true, to a point." He was silent for another moment before he visibly shook himself and continued on, "But it wasn't a medical disease that the writings were speaking of, it was an alien disease. A race called the Daleks, a part mechanical, part genetically engineered being that spread like a plague throughout the galaxy with one goal in mind, exterminate. They swarmed the galaxy, wiping out species after species until the Time Lords stepped in to attempt and bring them under control." He paused again before he added as a saddened afterthought, "But even the Time Lords were unable to destroy them."

Daniel was quiet for a moment before asking lowly, "And what happened then?"

The Doctor snapped into a more animated mood as he said, "Oh, they put up a good fight and managed to take them out. Now, how about you? How is you're war with the Goa'uld coming?"

Daniel realized that he was not going to be able to get anything more out of the Doctor. So he might as well play along with him. "Actually we have finally brought them to a position where they are no longer the ultimate force in the galaxy. For a while, there was one particularly powerful Goa'uld, Anubis, overtook all of the others. But now that he has been removed from the scene, things have become a lot easier to manage."

"Anubis?! What happened to him?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, that's kind of a long story."

"Looks like we have some time," he said.

"Alright then…"

Daniel was about to launch into the story when the Doctor suddenly reached back and placed his hand over the archeologist's mouth to quiet him. They had come to a junction in the pipe and the Doctor had pressed himself against the wall next to where it turned into the next tunnel. Daniel looked at the Doctor, wondering what it was that he had heard or maybe sensed. He was used to this sort of thing with Jack and Teal'c often times sensing danger long before he could.

The Doctor removed his hand as he leaned over and whispered. "Stay here." And suddenly he had practically vanished around the bend. Daniel fingered his Zat gun as he waited to hear some sort of noise or something to jump out at him.

After about a minute, he began to wonder what was going on. He inched his way to the corner, brining his Zat up and ready. He thought that he heard someone breathing just on the other side of the corner. He tensed for a second, wondering if it was the Doctor or something else.

Then he heard what sounded like a rock hitting the side of the tunnel. The sound was nowhere near him but he jumped all the same and gasped slightly. Suddenly a hand darted around the corner and grabbed him by the throat. Daniel tried to bring his Zat to aim at the Wraith who now held him, but it grabbed his wrist with his free hand and held his arm out as Daniel pulled the trigger.

Just as the energy blast was expelled, the Doctor was running up from the other side of the tunnel to try and help. Unfortunately, he walked right into the discharge and was stunned momentarily.

He fell to the floor, but wasn't quite blacked out. But by this point, Daniel was nearly unconscious from lack of oxygen as Michael continued to squeeze his throat shut.

The Doctor struggled to his feet just as Daniel passed out and his arm dropped to his side, allowing Michael to take the Zat from his limp hand and bring it to aim at the Doctor.

"You might not know this, but a second shot from this weapon kills," he told the Doctor as he continued to advance on the Wraith.

"You're just going to have to kill me then," he said darkly as he grabbed a hold of Michael and attempted to bring him to the floor. There was a brief scramble where they tried to gain control of the Zat. First it was aimed at the Doctor and then at Michael and then back to the Doctor.

They rolled on the dingy floor of the sewer, getting themselves covered in mud and filth as they continued to fight for supremacy.

Finally, the Doctor found himself on top with the Zat pinned between their two bodies. Nether knew for sure which way it was facing when they heard the sound of it firing.

Both jumped at the sound and froze. But it was a moment later when, the Doctor, with a face of surprise, fell over and hit the floor, shot by the Zat for the second time, just as Daniel came back around in time to witness the final blow.

"No!" he cried as he starred down at motionless form of the Doctor. As he turned his gaze back to Michael, he watched as another blast from the Zat hit him and he was down for the count.


	16. Playing Doctor

A/N: Ok, so here's the next chapter...Yay! I need to give special props to my beta, cybrokat on this one. She makes her fanfiction writing debut in this piece. She wrote the section in here that involves the Sam, Sara, Grissom, Mckay Convo. So if you like it, yay to her. If not... well it's still my fault that I left it open for her, so I guess you can blame me. Anway, hope you enjoy and review!

Mystica

**Playing Doctor**

Forman and Beckett walked side by side as they gingerly made their way down the sewer tunnel. "So," Foreman said. "A retro-virus?"

"Aye. I'm not too sure where I first came up with the idea, but it seemed like a good one at the time."

"But how did you do it?"

"It helps that I had the Atlantis database and equipment to work with, but a lot of it was trail and error."

"Sounds like you would get a long real well with my boss."

As they talked, Teal'c and Rose followed a short distance behind. "So," Rose started. "You're not from around here either, are you?"

"No, I am not," he answered.

"Where ya from then? I mean, what planet? Who are your people?"

"I am from Chulak. I am a Jaffa."

Rose looked at him as they walked for a moment, waiting for a bit more but she realized that he wasn't going to give it. "Are all Jaffa so talkative?"

"Not all," he said with an irritated sigh. "But most."

"Ah. Well… I guess that's nice…" she said, not sure how to proceed.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow as he responded, "Indeed."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

McKay cast a long glance over to where Sara was walking. "So, what is it that you studied in college?"

Sara shot a quick look at McKay before answering, "Biology. Why?"

"Just wondering what me and my future girlfriend have in common," McKay answered, earning him a sharp look from Grissom.

"Well, when you meet her, let me know what you found out."

Sam, taking pity on McKay, leaned over to whisper, "Her and Grissom are kind of an item."

"Oh, jealous are we?" McKay responded.

"Rodney, we've been done this road before. You know how I feel." Sam answered with exasperation.

"Colonel Carter," Grissom interrupted, hoping to diffuse the situation, "So, these Wraith live in colonies and feed on others. Are they a kind of...insect?"

"Well kind of but not really. You see, the Wraith started out as a bug called…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I would like to know how it is that we go to a doctor's convention in Las Vegas and wind up looking for our crippled boss in the sewer." Chase grumbled to Cameron.

Cameron looked at him before saying, "I would think that this would be the best day of your life. You have been given with out a doubt proof that aliens exist and House is forced to agree with you… How could your day get better?"

"By not being down here."

Sheppard was on point with Greg close behind. "Ever been down here before?" he asked the CSI.

"Once or twice. Every so often we get a case that requires it. Of course, me being the low man on the totem pole right now means I get these trips more often the others."

"So you're newer at this?"

"New at field work. I worked in the lab before this."

"Huh, you seem to carry yourself pretty well for being a lab guy."

Greg looked at Sheppard before saying, "Thanks, I think."

He was going to ask what Sheppard meant by that when they heard a noise echoing down the tunnels. It was the sound of a Zat firing.

"What…?" Chase began to ask when Sheppard brought up his hand to silence him.

They all listened for a moment before they heard the sound again. Sheppard spun around as he ran off down the tunnel, "This way!" he said, rushing to where he had heard the fire.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheppard was the first to reach the tunnel junction where a body lay prone. Greg was close on his heels with Cameron and Chase trailing behind.

Sheppard glanced around with his gun up and at the ready as he covered the body while Greg looked to who it was.

Greg turned him over to reveal that it was Daniel. "Dr. Jackson?" Greg said as he tried to wake the man.

"Is he alive?" Sheppard asked as he glanced down at Daniel. He had heard three shots and had feared that someone must have been shot at least twice.

Greg reached for a pulse as Cameron and Chase arrived. "Yes, just stunned I think," Greg answered as Cameron and Chase took over. Greg moved out of the way and came to stand next to Sheppard. "If Daniel was shot only once, then where did the other two shots go?" Greg asked.

"Better question is where did the Doctor go?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jack glanced over to Dr. House as he managed shifted his weight once again. He noticed a slight sheen of sweat that his companion had on his forehead, despite the cool temperature down there. He was also looking pale and just all around not well.

"Hey, you alright?" Jack called over.

"Oh, never better," House growled. "Just going through detox while I am tied up, unable to move, with a leg that requires movement to not be excruciating. Just another day at the zoo."

"Detox?" Jack asked, deciding to focus on one part of the litany.

"Chronic pain requires chronic treatment. My drug of choice is Vicodin. Which, thanks to the lovely LVPD, I have not had any most of the day."

"Ah," Jack said. "Bad knees myself. Kind of wish that the bad guys could find more comfortable places to hold ya. These damp tunnels are just not good on the arthritis."

House had to force a slight smile at Jack, "How many times have you been captured?"

"Oh… far too many times to count." He would have continued on but just then Michael appeared again.

He was dragging something behind him when he reached the bars and pulled a key from his pocket. "I brought someone new to join your little club," he sneered. He opened the door and threw an unresponsive body in with them and then entered himself.

House and Jack looked at the body and saw that it was the Doctor and he didn't look too good. "I have no idea why this one didn't die," Michael said. "But since he's not dead yet, I'm giving you an opportunity to prolong your own life," he said to House. "Save him, and you'll be last."

He then turned around and pulled a Zat out and fired, without warning, at Jack. Caught of guard, he didn't even have time to react to the shot before the General was unconscious.

"Was that necessary?" House demanded.

"Yes, it was," Michael said as he pulled a serrated knife from his pocket and walked over to House.

"Oh, well in that case, by all means…" he said as he tried to move further away from the advancing Wraith. But he was already against the wall and had nowhere to go. Michael reached him and yanked him away from the wall so that he could reach House's hands. Quickly he sliced through the ties that held his hands and then released him.

He turned and walked back over to O'Neill where he grabbed the unconscious man by the neck of his jacket and dragged him out of the room. "Dr. House," he said through the bars that he locked back in place. "If he dies, you die next." With that he turned and dragged O'Neill away.

House watched as Michael disappeared before he turned his attention to the Doctor. Still having his legs tied, he was forced to drag himself over to where the Doctor was lying. He was tied in like fashion with his arms behind his back and his legs together with zip strips. He was currently lying face down against the cement floor so House couldn't see him very clearly.

As House reached down to roll him over, he began to say, "Alright Doctor, please tell me this is an act. You're here to bust me out right? You're not really dying?" he said.

But he found with the dead weight that he was turning over and the sight of the Doctor's face, that this was no pretense.

The Doctor was extremely pale. It appeared as if all the color had been drained from him. He completely unresponsive and his breathing was very shallow. House reached up to his neck to feel for a pulse. He found a steady one, but then he remembered that the Doctor had two hearts.

He lowered his ear first to the right side of the Doctor's chest and then to the left. He sat up, certain that the left heart was not beating.

"Great, I have countless years of medical training that is not going to do me a bit of good on a man with two hearts," he muttered as he pulled himself up closer.

As he reached down to pry one of the Doctor's eyes open, the man gave a soft moan. "Doctor?" House said as shook him a bit.

All he received was another moan.

"Doctor, wake up!" House called as he shook him again, this time harder.

He moaned again as he shifted a bit and opened his eyes. He blinked several times and moved his head, looking around, before he lay still and asked, "House?"

"Yeah," House answered.

"Please tell me that it's dark wherever we are," he said.

"It's dim, but not completely dark," he answered as he brought his hand up in front of the Doctor's eyes. He waved it back and forth and didn't get any reaction. "You're blind," he said as a matter of fact statement.

"I noticed," he said as he tried to sit up. But as he did so, he paled a bit more and had to lie back down. "How do you manage with only one heart?" he muttered.

"It's fine for us, but apparently you need both of yours," House said as he reached down and tried to help the Doctor to sit up.

"What the hell happened?" House asked as he got the Doctor sitting, albeit unsteadily.

"Got shot twice by a Zat'ni'katel," he answered.

"Alright, we're going to have to play the pretend game again. How about we pretend that I have no idea what you just said or the significance of it," House said as he moved to be just behind the Doctor.

"It's an energy weapon. First shot stuns, second kills, third disintegrates."

"So if you got shot twice, why aren't you dead?"

"Probably because my body is more able to withstand energy discharges than you humans are. But apparently, not by much."

"What type of energy?" House asked.

"Electrical."

"So you've essentially just been struck by lightening. Which would explain the loss of a heart rhythm and the blindness."

"Why the blindness? I wasn't hit in the face."

"Because electricity messes with the body's circuits and can wind up sending messages to the wrong location in the brain. Apparently you got a high enough dose of electricity to short out your optical nerves. Now hold still, I'm going to try and get your other heart beating again," he said as he braced the Doctor with his right hand as he brought his left up in a fist and brought it down hard into the left die of the Doctor's back.

The Doctor grunted as the blow hit him, taking him by surprise. "Ow, what was that for?" he demanded.

House ignored him as he felt the place where he had just hit with his hand and didn't feel any flicker of a beat. "I told you, I'm restarting your heart. Hold still," he said as he brought his hand down again into his patient's back.

The Doctor gasped as he suddenly felt a rush inside. "Alright, you got it," he muttered as he took a few deep breaths to steady himself again.

House felt his back again and determined that the Doctor was right; both hearts were beating again.

"Do you think it will come back?" the Doctor asked.

"Your sight?" House said as he moved back to face the Doctor. He reached up and pulled one of the Doctor's eyes all the way open and peered into it. "Light's pretty bad, but I don't see any damage to the optics. You'll probably be fine once all of your neural pathways reestablish their normal course.

"Good. And would that be the same for my legs as well?" he asked.

"Legs?" House asked.

"Yup, can't feel them," the Doctor said.

"Yeah, should be able the same as the eyes, though not sure if you'll get them back before the Wraith comes back to finish you off."

"Where is he anyway?" the Doctor asked.

"Not sure. He just took O'Neill away when he dropped you off. Told me to play doctor and save you or I would be next to die."

"Took O'Neill!" he exclaimed. "Damn!" he said as he tried to move to stand but his legs would not respond to him and he couldn't see what he was doing. All he managed to do was knock his head against the wall as he fell over.

"Hold still!" House said. You're tied up, can't move your legs, can't see, and trapped inside a cage. You're not going to be able to help him."

The Doctor regained his breath as he said, "No, but you can."

"How do you expect me to do that? My legs are tied and I'm still inside the cage. Not to mention, even if I was free, I would still hardly be able to walk thanks to my messed up leg."

The Doctor sighed as he willed himself to calm. He needed to be up and doing something but he had to rely on House right now to get things done. "The Wraith is about to kill O'Neill if he hasn't already. You've got to stop him. Now, reach into my inside, left jacket pocket. I'm pretty sure my sonic screwdriver is still there."

House sighed, but complied. He reached in and felt the metallic device and pulled it out. "Now what?" he asked as he eyed the strange thing that he held.

"There's a dial on the bottom, turn it to… 13 should be good and use it to cut your bindings and mine."

House looked at it and fiddled for a second before he was able to figure it all out. Once he did, he made short work of the ties that still held his legs as well as the Doctor's hands and legs.

"Good, now, is your leg still going to give you difficulty?" the Doctor asked as he rubbed feeling back into his hands.

"Oh yeah," House said as he likewise was rubbing his leg.

The Doctor thought for a second. "There is a way that you can use the screwdriver to deaden those nerves, at least for a little while, so that it won't bother you. It'll only last about an hour and probably won't work a second time, but it will give you some time to work."

"What do I have to do?" House asked, willing to do anything to get rid of his pain, even for a short time.

The Doctor closed his blind eyes as he thought a second. "You're going to have to stimulate the nerves first so it will become much more painful for a moment," he told House.

House nodded and then remembered that the Doctor couldn't see him. "Fine," he said.

"Alright, setting… 37 for about 5 seconds, switch to 58 until the pain is gone," he answered.

House nodded, more for his own sake then for the Doctor's. He quickly flipped the setting on the device in his hand and held it over his thigh for a moment. He took a deep breath and then flipped it on.

He was forced to strangle a cry as the already terrible pain in his leg intensified and built to the worse that he had ever experienced. Doggedly, he forced himself to count out the seconds that he held the screwdriver in place. The moment that he reached 5, he pulled it away to change the setting. His hands were shaking with the pain that his body was telling his brain that he was in. But he knew the faster he got the new setting, the faster the pain would go away.

After what felt like an eternity, he had the correct setting and he flipped it on over his thigh once again. He finally allowed himself to breathe as the pain subtly began to lessen. He breathed deeply as he felt all of the extra pain fade from his leg and then, wonderfully, all of his pain disappeared. It was like just after he had had his Ketamine treatment, all of the pain was gone.

He flipped the thing off and experimentally began to rise. "So?" he heard the Doctor ask.

"It worked," House managed to say as he began to walk over to the bars. "Now, how do I open this cage?"

"17," the Doctor answered.

It only took another second for the bars to swing open. "What about you?" House asked.

"I'll be fine. You just go and stop that Wraith from killing O'Neill," he answered as he blindly reached for the wall.

House shook his head and walked back into the cell and helped the Doctor to lean up against the wall before he said, "And how am I supposed to do that?"

"Don't know. I'm sure you'll think of something."

House placed the screwdriver back in the Doctor's hand but the Doctor wouldn't take it. Shaking his head he said, "No, you're going to need this more than me."

"I have no idea how to use it."

"Well, you at least know how to cut and how to open locks. That might come in handy. Besides, I can't exactly see to use it right now."

House sighed and then took it and placed it in his pocket. "Alright. But just for the record, I think that this is a bad idea."

The Doctor smiled, "Then I'm sure that it will work."

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Jack dazedly awoke just a few moments later to find himself standing against a wall with his hands tied to something just above his head.

"Ah, you're awake," he heard Michael say near by. "Good, I like when my meal is aware when I feed," he said.

O'Neill went to say something bitingly sarcastic when he realized that there was a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

"I'm afraid that I'll have to leave you for another moment though. I got two more morsels earlier and now that the Doctor is secure, I need to retrieve the other before he wakes up again. Could only take one at a time. But as soon as I have Dr. Jackson secure, I'll be back," he said as he patted O'Neill on the cheek.

All the General was able to do was glare back at Michael as the Wraith stalked away, disappearing into the blackness.

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"What happened?" Sheppard asked Daniel as he came around and was able to sit up. "Where's the Doctor?"

Daniel shook his head as he tried to bring himself back to awareness. He looked at Sheppard and suddenly it all came back to him. "I think he'd dead," Daniel muttered, not wanting to believe it himself.

"Dead?" Greg said. "Then why isn't he here?"

Sheppard looked a Greg a second before saying, "He's right. A Wraith wouldn't take a dead person away when a live one is still lying here. They can't feed on the dead."

Daniel shook his head again before saying, "I don't know, but he was shot twice by a Zat. I've never known anyone to come back from that."

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As they talked, Michael listened further down the tunnel. Apparently, he wasn't quick enough to get his other victim and he wasn't about to risk taking all of them on by himself right then. He still had three pretty well hidden. As long as he continued to avoid these people, he would be fine.

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"Carter, Teal'c, you reading me?" Sheppard radioed.

"Yeah Sheppard," Sam replied.

"I am, Colonel Sheppard," Teal'c answered.

"Alright, I need both of your groups to break off and come back to me. It seems that Daniel and the Doctor ran into Michael. They were on the right track after all."

"Are they alright?" Sam asked.

Sheppard paused for a moment before saying, "We're with Dr. Jackson right now. He's recovering from a Zat blast. As for the Doctor… We're not sure where he is or what condition he's in."


	17. Reunions

Reunions 

House meandered through the twists and turns of the sewer system, hoping to come across O'Neill in time. Of course he was actually much more impressed with his freedom of movement without pain than anything else, but he knew that he needed to find O'Neill.

House was feeling completely lost when all of the sudden he nearly ran right into a dead end. As he reached out and put a hand to the wall in front of him, he sighed, wondering what way to go now. As he sighed he heard a bit of movement just to his left. Fearing that it might be Michael, but also knowing that it could be O'Neill or someone else who was down there looking for him, he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and used its faint blue light as a flash light.

He looked to where the sound had come from and saw a bound and gagged O'Neill blinking back at him from the light.

"Found ya," House said as he crossed over to O'Neill and pulled the piece of tape off of his mouth.

O'Neill tried not to groan with the sharp pain of having the tape removed, but he certainly gave House a piercing glare for not being very gentle. "What took you so long?" he demanded.

"Sorry, had to patch up the Doctor and then get basic lessons on how to use his gizmo," House muttered as he switched the screwdriver to cut through O'Neill's bindings. "Where's Senior Life Sucker disappeared to?" he asked as he cut through the bindings.

"Off to get Daniel it sounded like," O 'Neill answered. "Apparently he stunned both the Doctor and Daniel at once. He just went to go get him and secure him and then he was going to be back for me."

"What are the chances that Daniel recovered from the stun before Michael returned?" House asked.

"Slim," O'Neill answered. "We need to get back to that cell."

"Sounds great, if I could remember how I got here."

O'Neill rolled his eyes as he asked, "Where's the Doctor anyway?"

"He wasn't exactly up for trekking through the tunnels on a rescue mission," House answered as they began to make their way back up the tunnel.

"So you just left him there?!" O'Neill demanded.

"Hey, it was his idea. You were in a little more trouble than us right then. He swore that he would be alright."

"Let's just get back there before something else goes wrong."

A voice echoed beside them then, "Too late."

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"Colonel Sheppard," Teal'c radioed back. "I believe that it would be faster for us to cut across to you instead of back tracking."

"Can you find us Teal'c?" Sheppard asked.

"I believe so."

"Then by all means, just get here quickly."

"I think that we're going to have to backtrack some to get to you," Sam answered.

"Fine, we'll see you soon. Sheppard out."

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"What does he mean they don't know about the Doctor?" Rose demanded worriedly.

"He undoubtedly has gone missing. It is possible that he just became separated from Dr. Jackson," Teal'c answered.

"You don't know him. He wouldn't have just left Daniel if he was hurt. Something must have happened!" she said worriedly.

"Rose," Foreman said. "You know the Doctor better than any of us. Wouldn't you think that he's more than capable of taking care of himself?"

"I know that he has been, but I should be there with him," she answered.

"We're going to do all we can for him. Chances are that he has been put with Dr. House and General O'Neill by now," Beckett told her.

Rose gnawed on her bottom lip as she tried to put the horrible thoughts that were racing through her head aside.

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As soon as House had left, the Doctor began to plan his route of escape. He was blind and half paralyzed, but when had that ever stopped him?

Using the wall that House had leaned him against as a guide, he began to pull himself along, searching for the exit. It took a while, but eventually he came to the metal bars that he had heard House leave through.

Grabbing a hold of them, he used them to pull himself to a stand. His legs still wouldn't listen to him, but he managed to arrive at an unsteady upright position, leaning against the bars.

"Oh yeah, great idea. Send the only other person who was here to help you away while you're blind and immobile, waiting for a Wraith to come and feed on you… fantastic," he muttered to himself as he caught his breath.

Pulling himself along by shear arm power, he managed to make it out of the opening and to the edge of the tunnel where the bars stopped. "Now what?" he asked himself. He stood there for a while, thinking of what course he should take. As he stood, a tingling sensation began to slowly enter his feet.

"Well, that's a start anyway," he said as he grabbed a hold of the wall beside him and tried to take a step. He was able to bring his right foot up a few inches but as his weight transferred to his left leg, it gave out, sending him to the hard sewer floor.

He grunted in frustration as he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. He leaned against the wall, panting from exertion, wondering what he was going to do now.

As he sat there, he began to hear noises. At first it was very distant echoes of faint voices and reverberating foot falls. But the longer he sat, the louder they became. Then, one of the voices stuck out and he knew exactly who was coming his way.

"Shouldn't we be at least be looking for them as we go?" Rose said to Teal'c.

"I am. Colonel Sheppard wishes us to come to him and I agree. But I am listening and watching for any signs that our friends may have been this way."

The Doctor's hearts leapt at the welcome sound of friendly voices. But then, he heard them begin to fade as it sound like they turned down another corner.

"Rose!" he called out, trying to get their attention.

Rose paused where she was, as did Teal'c. Foreman and Beckett nearly collided with them as they had not heard anything to give them pause.

"Did you…?" Rose began, but Teal'c raised his hand to silence her as he listened intently.

The Doctor heard the noises of the group stop, but there was no response. He began to pull himself along the sewer floor with his arms in their general direction as he called again, "Rose!"

Rose turned and looked at Teal'c, "That's him!" she said excitedly as she took off running in the other direction. Teal'c was close behind as a confused Beckett and Foreman tried to keep up.

"Rose!" the Doctor called one more time as he heard her swiftly approaching feet.

"Doctor!" she called. Relief flood through him as he heard her voice call to him.

"Here Rose!" he called back, as he stopped trying to make it closer to her and leaned up against the wall once again.

A moment later he felt her reach his side. Her hands were on the sides of his face and he could feel her looking at him, even if he still couldn't see her face. "Doctor! What happened?" she asked, voice full of concern.

He could hear as heavy footfalls slowed and came to a stop just above him and Rose. Two others were still approaching.

"I took a little more of a blast than my body could handle," he explained. "Right now I can't see or move my legs, but House thinks that it will return soon."

"Oh my god," he heard her whisper as the other footfalls stopped.

"What kind of a blast?" he heard a heavy Scottish voice ask near to his other side. He felt a new hand pulling his head the other way and a hand prying open his right eye.

"Zat'ni'katel," the Doctor answered.

"Just one blast did this?" Beckett asked.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow and stated, "A single shot from a Zat'ni'katel would not cause such heavy damage."

"No it wouldn't," the Doctor answered. "But two would."

Beckett reached towards Foreman and asked, "Do you have a light?"

Foreman reached into a pocket and pulled out a penlight. "Of course," he answered as he handed it over to the Scottish doctor.

Suddenly, the Doctor saw a flash of bright light that startled him as he had seen nothing but blackness for some time now. He flinched and tried to shut his eye to it, but found the hand still holding it open.

"Did you see that?" Carson asked as he released his right eye and did the same with his left. The light wasn't nearly as bright when it was shone, but it was still more than he had been getting from his eyes.

"Right one more than the left," he told Beckett.

"You should not be alive after two shots," Teal'c informed the Doctor.

"Oh, thanks for letting me know. Now that I know, I'll make sure I meet your expectations," the Doctor said with heavy sarcasm.

"Doctor," Rose chided.

"Sorry," he answered. "Just get a little grumpy when I've nearly been killed, again."

"Don't worry about it, we know the feeling," Beckett answered as he reached his arm around the Doctor's waist. "Alright, let's get you out of here," he said. "Teal'c could you help me?"

The Doctor felt Rose leave his side as a strong arm grabbed a hold of him and lifted him up to his feet. The other arm felt like it barely even moved him. As he came to a stand, he could feel all of his weight being supported by Teal'c. Beckett's hand was still there, but it was more to stabilize him than anything.

"Do you know anything about House and O'Neill?" Foreman asked.

The Doctor nodded, "O'Neill was taken by Michael somewhere. I sent House to help him."

"House?" Foreman asked. "We're talking about the same Dr. House, right?"

"He can do it. Besides, it's not like I had a whole lot of people to choose from at the time."

"Where has O'Neill been taken?" Teal'c asked.

"I don't know," was the answer.

Teal'c nodded as he used his free hand to press his radio button. "Colonel Sheppard."

There was a slight pause before, "Yeah Teal'c?"

"We have found the Doctor. He is injured, but alive."

"Good. The others?"

"He reports Michael has taken General O'Neill somewhere and Dr. House is trying to locate him. Where they are, we do not know."

There was another brief pause before Sheppard replied, "Alright. Colonel Carter, how close to me are you?"

"Nearly there," she replied.

"Teal'c, you and Beckett begin a search. Dr. Foreman and Rose, get the Doctor out. Alright?"

"Understood," Teal'c answered.

"Carter, Dr.'s Chase and Cameron as well as Dr. Jackson will wait here for you. I'll Take Greg and start my own search. I think that we at least have him cornered somewhere between Teal'c and I."

"Got it," Carter replied.

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"No, I'm not leaving," The Doctor protested as Rose and Foreman helped to support him. He was able to stand on his own now, but he still wasn't stable or able to move them.

Teal'c and Beckett had already left and begun their search.

Foreman shook his head as he said, "Doctor, you can't stay down here. You're more likely to get in the way at this point than anything."

"House is still down here as well as O'Neill. I sent House after him, if anything happens it's my fault!"

"It's not your fault," Rose said. "There was no one else. If something does happen, it will be the Wraith's fault, not yours."

"I don't care. I'm not leaving," he said as he tried to shrug Foreman and Rose away. They were both propelled away from him. For a brief second, it looked like he might be able to walk on his own. But as he took one step, his leg completely collapsed under him, sending him back to the ground.

"Doctor!" Rose cried as she was once again at his side.

Just then they heard a voice cry out and the sound of Zat fire. It didn't sound like anyone they knew, but it was so distorted they couldn't have been sure. All three glanced in the direction that the sound had come from. "You two, go! They might need help!" the Doctor said.

"We're not leaving you!" Rose cried.

"Rose, I'll be fine. There's just the one Wraith and you'll be in between him and me anyways. The others may need your help. Wraith are extremely difficult to bring down, let alone kill. We're talking about a species that kicked my people out of an entire galaxy. Everyone is needed there."

Rose looked at him. She could tell that he was beginning to regain his sight as he was now looking directly into her eyes. He still seemed to be having difficulty focusing, but it was returning. She thought for a second and determined that he would be alright. He was getting better every moment and perhaps he would even be able to take care of himself in the near future.

"Alright," Rose decided. "But you promise not to do anything stupid, alright?"

He grinned at her, "Hey, it's me," he said.

She lightly hit him on the arm as she said, "That's my point."

"Rose, are you sure about this?" Foreman asked her.

She looked up and nodded, "Yeah."

"Alright, let's get going then."

She took a hold of the Doctor's hand and gave him a strong squeeze before standing. "Wish us luck," she said to him.

"Good luck Rose."

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"Damn!" O'Neill swore.

"Can't say I was expecting this," House said.

"So, you got out of your little cage," Michael said. "Where's your new friend, I wonder?"

"Died. I couldn't save him," House said.

"Hmm, I don't believe you, but it doesn't really matter," he said as they watched and heard him pop his Zat. "Now, I wonder if it has been long enough between shots for you, Colonel? If I shoot you now, will it only stun you, or kill you?"

"Well how about we just not take that chance, huh? Wouldn't want you to ruin a perfectly good meal now would we?" O'Neill said as he began to raise his hands.

"True. But I can always use Dr. House here. I'm not going to have time to use both of you it seems. Just enough for one and then I have to get out of here. There are far too many people down here looking for me; I'm going to have to disappear for a while."

Michael raised his Zat and aimed it at O'Neill. But just as he was about to pull the trigger, House lunged at him, shoving the sonic screwdriver into his eye and activating it. It had still been set on the cutting setting he had used on O'Neill's bonds.

Michael let out a cry of pain as his shot went up into the ceiling. O'Neill tried to grab for the Zat, but Michael managed to dodge and fired at him. Luckily, he made it out of the way just in time.

"Let's go!" he cried to House as Michael was still trying to clear his effected vision. They could see that his right eye was mangled and bloody.

House ran as O'Neill followed close behind. "Where's that cell?" O'Neill called.

"I told you, I'm not sure," he called over his shoulder.

"Fine!" O'Neill said as he brought them to a stop at a T junction. "Take your best guess."

"Left," House said as he reached down and rubbed his leg.

O'Neill noticed and asked, "How's the leg?"

"Fine. The Doctor fixed it up for a while. Let's get moving before that thing finds us, shall we?"

"Alright, left it is."


	18. Unexpected Guests

A/N: Alright, I finally wrote again! Sorry for the long wait but college life got a bit hectic. I would like to apologize right now also for any spelling or grammatical mistakes in this one. I decided to send it right on to you rather than through my beta. I hope that it isn't too bad…. 

And now, let the saga continue.

**Unexpected Guests**

"Sam?" Daniel called into the darkened tunnel. He had heard movement a little ways down.

"Yeah Daniel, it's us," she said as she stepped out of the gloom followed closely by Grissom, Sara, and McKay.

"I can't believe that one Wraith is causing us this much trouble," McKay muttered as he leaned up against the wall of the sewer to rest.

"I can," Daniel said as he turned from McKay and addressed Sam. "Sheppard went that way. He wants us to follow him and I think that we should hurry up. I think I heard more Zat fire a second ago."

"Alright. So we've got this thing pretty much cornered. You four, I think that we'll be fine. You can start heading back up," she said as she addressed Grissom, Sara, Chase, and Cameron.

"House is still down here somewhere," Cameron protested.

"And you are not qualified for this kind of stuff, we are," Sam answered.

"I could take them back up," McKay volunteered as he pushed himself off from the wall he was leaning against.

"I thought you were supposed to be here as our Wraith expert?" Daniel said.

"Well, that's really more a Sheppard and Beckett thing. I'm just here for… back up."

"Shut up McKay," Sam said. "You're coming too. You four, get back up to the surface. We should be out with Dr. House and the General soon enough."

There was a little more grumbling, but ultimately the two doctors and the two CSI turned and headed back the way they had come.

"This doesn't feel right," Sara muttered as they marched on.

"I know what you mean," was Cameron's response.

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Meanwhile Sheppard and Greg practically ran right into House and O'Neill. Greg actually did collide with House.

"Great to see you again Sheppard! Now if you don't mind, we have a very angry Wraith behind us that needs taking care of," O'Neill said.

"Are you two alright?" Sheppard asked as he moved quickly past them and began scanning for the nearby Wraith.

"Peachy. Been stunned twice and nearly drained by a life sucker, but just another day," O'Neill replied. He glanced back at House who was strangely quiet and caught him rubbing his leg again.

"How about you?" he asked House.

"About the same. Been stunned, my life threatened several times. Same old same old."

O'Neill knew that house was not going to admit to weakness and decided to take care of this without pointing it out. "Greg, you two don't need to be down here. Take Dr. House back up. We'll take care of the Wraith."

"Remember, the Doctor is still down here somewhere. Don't accidentally shoot him," House grumbled as he and Greg turned to find their way back to the surface.

As they disappeared around the corner, Sheppard turned to O'Neill saying, "That was a little too easy."

"Yeeeaah, well, I hope they don't turn up later and get in the way."

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The Doctor sat against the tunnel wall for a moment, considering what his options were. Everyone else was converging on the Wraith, so, in theory, he wasn't really needed. But just sitting there doing nothing wasn't really his style. But what choice did he have?

As he sat there, he thought he heard movement somewhere off to his right. Teal'c, Beckett, Foreman, and Rose had departed to his left and that was where the sounds of everyone else had come from. So what was making noise to his right?

Must me a rat, he told himself, but deep down he knew better. He began to wish that he hadn't given his screwdriver to House as he suddenly felt even more vulnerable than before.

The sound of movement steadily moved nearer and nearer to him. He still was not able to focus on anything but he thought that he might see some type of shape hovering closer.

"Hello?" he asked.

There was a slight intake of breath not far from him, but no response. So it was something living anyway.

"You should respond when someone says something to you; it's not very polite to ignore me."

"Michael said you would be in the cell. How did you get out?" A voice asked. The Doctor gave a slight inward shudder as the sound of the voice didn't have a very human ring to it."

"I'm Houdini. Who are you? How do you know Michael?"

"You are without sight," the voice said as it moved closer.

"Very good. But there you go changing the subject. Didn't we just cover that's rather impolite to ignore questions?" The Doctor began testing his legs to see if they might be able to support him yet. It was sounding more and more likely that he was going to need to run for it in the near future. Why did he have to tell Rose that there was only one Wraith? He practically asked for this to happen.

"Michael saved us from the others." The voice answered as it came even nearer.

"Us?" the Doctor asked, even more alarmed. That indicated that there was more than just Michael and this other one. The others might be walking into some kind of ambush.

"Three others to be exact. We have been hunting you for some time now. But now the time for questions has ended. I haven't fed in a long time."

The Doctor heard the Wraith lung at him as he pushed up from the wall and made it all of two steps before a hand grabbed his leg, sending him crashing to the ground again.

He was flipped over and a hand came to his throat, pinning him to the ground and cutting off his air. Vaguely, the Doctor was able to see the other hand reaching for his chest. He grabbed the arm just in time. They struggled a few moments, the Doctor trying to keep the Wraith's hand from his chest.

He needed help. There was no way that he was going to get away form this Wraith on his own. But he could barley draw enough breathe to stay conscious. Let alone call for help. He needed to make the Wraith call out.

His hands were a little busy as the time and his legs still weren't exactly responding to him. He needed another hand. But if he let go with one hand, the stronger Wraith would have him.

Gathering all his nerve and focus, he released the Wraith's harm with his left hand and reached up, digging his fingers into it's eyes. The action brought forth a cry of pain from the Wraith and a slight lessoning of its grip to his throat, but the other hand never stopped its downward motion to the Time Lord's chest. His left hand returned to the struggle just in time. Long fingernails were able to scratch as him and the hand hovered just a fraction of an inch from range.

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Rose and Foreman were racing away from where they had left the Doctor when Rose suddenly paused.

Foreman stopped a fraction of a second later, turned and faced her. "What is it?"

"We shouldn't have left him," Rose answered as she glanced back down the tunnel the way they had come from.

"Rose, he told us to go. He said that we would be needed more with the others."

"But he's defenseless. We shouldn't have left him; I'm going back."

"Rose…"

"Keep going. I'm just going to make sure that he gets out of the tunnel alright," she told Foreman as she turned and began heading back towards the Doctor.

Foreman paused where he was for a second trying to decide which way he should head. He had just made up his mind to continue on to find the others when a cry sounded from back the way Rose and him had just come from. Swearing quietly to himself, he took off after Rose.

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Cameron finally stopped in her tracks. "This isn't right. We should be helping." She turned to a bewildered Chase and said, "We're doctors. We're supposed to help. House, O'Neill, and the Doctor might be hurt."

"Dr. Cameron, Dr. Beckett is still down here and he is also military trained," Grissom pointed out. "He will be a lot more use to them than you will."

"But there are three missing and it's possible more will be hurt. Not to mention, we still don't know where everyone is. This is a big place and they will need all the help they can get to search it."

"But we're just going to get in their way," Chase argued.

"Grissom and Sara have been in situations like this before and they are at least weapons trained. And we know how to stay out of the way when we have to, we work for House for God's sake!"

They all looked at her for a moment as they took in her words. But before anyone else could say anything, she turned and started heading back, saying over her shoulder, "I'm going back, you do what you want."

It only took a second for them all to exchange a look before starting after Cameron, but by now she had already rounded a bend in the tunnel. Just as they stepped towards her direction, they all head her scream just a little ways a head.

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"You think we really should just leave?" Greg asked House.

House was too busy trying to ignore the growing pain in his leg to pay much attention to what Greg was saying. That certainly was no hour worth of being pain free like the Doctor had told him it would be.

"What do you think we're going to be able to do?" House put to Greg with a bit of a snarl. He was going to need his cane here pretty soon if it continued to worsen. And the Doctor's pain treatment certainly did nothing for his vicodin withdrawal.

Greg, oblivious to the discomfort that House was experiencing, just shrugged and continued to walk on, slightly behind House.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed Greg's shoulder, locked on and threw him backwards, against the side of the tunnel, knocking him out as he slid down it. Luckily, Greg had managed to call out a warning as the hand touched him. House spun around just in time to see a new Wraith step over the unconscious body of the CSI.

"Shit."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Carter," O'Neill's voice sounded on Sam's Radio.

"Sir?" She asked rather surprised.

"Yeah it's me. Sheppard found me and House. Greg and him should be heading your way now. Told them to get out of here.

"I told Grissom, Sara, Cameron, and Chase the same. They should be just about out by now."

"Good. Just make sure that they make it to you, alright? We've got Michael cornered I think."

"Yes sir."

"Well that accounts for everybody at least," Daniel said as they continued on.

"Now we just need to take out the Wraith," McKay muttered.

Sam and Daniel were about to exchange a smile when they heard what sounded like Greg suddenly crying out not far from them. The look of amusement that Sam and Daniel were about to exchange suddenly turned into one of alarm as they took off running, McKay close behind saying seemingly to no one, "Alright, I didn't mean right now!"

Sam and Daniel rounded a corner just in time to see House, who had been running towards them, fall. Close behind was a Wraith. It had just reached the prone House as Sam fired her Zat, hitting the Wraith full in the chest. It stumbled backward as House struggled back to his feet with the help of Daniel. Sam maneuvered herself between them and the Wraith who was quickly shaking off the effects of the Zat.

McKay rounded the corner and caught sight of the Wraith. "Who is that?!" he demanded.

"I don't know, but that is not Michael," House panted. "I could have swore that there was only supposed to be one of those things down here.

"Apparently we were wrong," Sam said as she started backing up and forcing the others to do so as well.

Just then her radio crackled as O'Neill's voice sounded, "Carter? What's going on? We heard a Zat."

Sam reached for her radio to respond as the Wraith lunged for her. Both McKay and Daniel opened fire with their P-90s as Sam fired her Zat again. The Wraith stumbled back again and looked down at the blue blood that was pouring from its wounds before turning and running back the way it had come.

"Where's Greg?" Daniel demanded as Sam radioed to O'Neill.

"There's a second Wraith. We've wounded it, but it's on the run towards you now.

"He's back that way. The Wraith knocked him out," House answered Daniel.

"Where'd the second one come from?" McKay asked almost in time with O'Neill's response. "A second one?"

"Yes sir, and it's heading your way."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sheppard and O'Neill exchanged a look before Sheppard said, "Well, so much for cornering the Wraith. Looks like they're cornering us."


	19. Fighting Back

**Fighting Back  
**

"Doctor!" Rose called as she heard the call of pain from the Wraith. She doubled her speed as she fumbled with the Zat that Teal'c had given her. Vaguely she was able to hear Foreman coming up behind her.

As she neared where she had left the Doctor she came to a sudden halt as she caught sight of the scene in front of her. The Doctor was being held down by a Wraith as it was nearly able to gain purchase on him to begin feeding.

Rose brought her Zat up but there was no way that she could hit the Wraith without hitting the Doctor as well. She knew it was only a stunning gun, but he was still suffering from the effects of the last hits he took.

"Doctor?" Rose called, as she hesitated.

"Shoot him," the Doctor rasped out as the Wraith gained another fraction of an inch.

Rose ran a bit closer and pulled the Zat up again, took aim, and fired. The beam of energy struck the Wraith, knocking it back and off of the Doctor without delivering a shock to him. But it wasn't down for long. Rose just had time to reach the Doctor's side when the Wraith was up again and lunging at them once again.

The Doctor shoved Rose out of the way as the Wraith threw itself onto him once again. Rose rolled and turned around as she watched the Wraith stab the Doctor in the chest with its long fingernails. He screamed in pain as she brought her Zat up once again and fired as simultaneously Foreman arrived and fired three shots from his pistol into the creature. The Wraith screamed in pain until the third bullet passed through his head. It suddenly stiffened and then fell silently, pinning the Doctor down with its weight.

"Doctor?" Rose called once again as she hurried back to him. She shoved the heavy Wraith off of him and was overjoyed when she realized that he was pushing as well.

As the dead Wraith fell to the floor, Rose saw the Doctor grabbing his chest with blood drops oozing between his fingers. "Rose," he gasped as he continued to regain his breath after nearly being choked.

"God, Doctor," she said as she placed her hand over his. "I thought I said not to do anything stupid," she said with a forced smile.

"Guess the stupid thing I did was let you leave my side."

By then Foreman was there. "Let me see," he said as first Rose and then the Doctor pulled their hands away. "I'm fine," the Doctor said as Rose and Foreman hovered over him. Foreman ignored him and pushed the side of his jacket aside and lifted his shirt to see the wounds.

There were definitely five perfect puncture marks that were rimmed in blood. But as they looked, they could see that the bleeding was slowing to a stop and the wounds were beginning to close themselves.

"Ok, Time Lords apparently have rapid healing abilities," Foreman said.

"What?" the Doctor asked as he sat up enough to be able to see his chest himself. "That's not right! I shouldn't heal that fast."

"Doctor," Rose said, "You can see."

He looked at her for a second before he realized exactly what she was saying. "I can," he finally stated.

"How are your legs?" Foreman asked.

Immediately the Doctor jumped up and began pacing about. "I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. I'm better than fine in fact," he said as he came to a halt with a look of concerned concentration.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"I don't know. But I feel amazing."

Just then heavy footfalls sounded down the tunnel from the way that they had just come from.

Foreman brought his gun to aim just as Teal'c rounded the corner.

"Dr. Foreman, what has happened here?" Teal'c asked. Beckett was rounding the corner behind him.

Foreman lowered his gun as he said, "A second Wraith nearly got the Doctor."

"Dr. Beckett, have you ever encountered something like this?" the Doctor asked as he stepped up to the Atlantis doctor and revealed his now nearly healed wounds. "It got its claws in me so to speak and now the wounds are nearly healed and I can see and walk now."

As Beckett looked at the rapidly healing fingerprints, he nodded his head, "Aye. I've seen I it once before. It's the enzyme that the Wraith injects into its victim in order for it to survive the feeding process.

"What happens to someone who just receives the enzyme?" Rose asked.

Beckett sighed, "It creates an immediate addiction and it has to have a slow removal of the enzyme to keep the body from completely shutting down during withdraw."

"I don't suppose you have any of that with you, do you?" Foreman asked seriously.

"Not here. We do have some stocked up at Atlantis for study. But, depending on how big of a dose you received, Doctor, you could only have an hour, maybe two, before you start going through withdraw."

"If I can get to my TARDIS, I can make it to Atlantis in no time," the Doctor replied. "But the fact is, all of your information is based on a human, which I am not."

"Doctor, that may mean that you won't have a problem or it might mean that it will be worse," Foreman said.

"My people are notorious for being able to withstand many more strains on the body than what your human bodies are capable of."

"But do you want to take that risk?" Foreman asked.

"Doctor, you don't know what might happen," Rose urged.

The Doctor looked at Rose and seemed about to relent when first O'Neill's voice came over Teal'c's radio asking if Carter was ok. They all waited anxiously for her to respond. Finally she came back and reported that there was another Wraith. The group all exchanged looks as they waited for the conversation to end.

"Another one?" Foreman asked as Teal'c pulled his radio free to communicate what they knew.

"That means that there are still two Wraith down here, possibly more," Beckett said.

Suddenly it was as if a light bulb went off in the Doctor's head as he said. "That's right! The Wraith," he said, waving his hand over the dead one at his feet. "He said that there were three of them with Michael. That means there are still three down here."

Teal'c looked up at them and quickly related the new information to O'Neill.

"I can't leave now. You need all the help you can get until these Wraith are found," the Doctor said.

"You can't be serious," Rose exclaimed. "You've got to go to Atlantis before you begin going through withdraw."

"Rose, I will. After we take of these Wraith," he said as he began to quickly head off towards the others.

"Doctor," Beckett called as he followed close behind him. "There is also an element of mental effect that also comes with this enzyme. It gives the person a sense of euphoria and often effects the judgment center of the brain."

"On humans," the Doctor parroted once again. He stopped and looked back at the others as he could feel their eyes piercing him. "Look, as soon as we get this taken care of I'll go to Atlantis and have you take care of me Beckett, but I'm not leaving while there is something that I might still be able to do." He paused and looked right at Rose, "Rose, you know that I'm not leaving."

Rose bowed her head and nodded. "Alright," she said as she raised her head. "Let's get going so we can get you to Atlantis as soon as possible.

The Doctor grinned as he said, "Right, now let's get moving."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Cameron!" Chase called as they all rushed around the corner.

They all paused in horror as they glimpsed the scene before them. A Wraith stood just behind Cameron, one arm wrapped around her body, pinning her arms and holding her in place, the other clamped over her mouth.

Cameron stared at them wild eyed and trembling as they tried to figure out what just happened.

"Put down your guns," the Wraith snarled at Grissom and Sara. They hesitated just a second to long as the Wraith moved his hand from Cameron's arms to her throat, causing her to gasp slightly in fearful surprise.

"I said drop them, or she dies."

They complied as they slowly knelt to the floor, dropping their guns.

The Wraith smiled, "Good. Now it seems that our little nest has been discovered. If you would be so kind as to point me to the nearest exit, I promise not to harm you or this pretty thing."

"Why should we trust you?" Sara asked.

"Because you have no choice." It smiled back at them.

"Let her go and we'll show you out," Chase told it.

The Wraith chuckled a little before answering, "And then how should I trust you to hold up your end? She is my bargaining chip; I don't plan on releasing her anytime soon."

They all exchanged glance before Grissom nodded to the Wraith, "Alright," he responded.

The Wraith smiled as he released Cameron's mouth and used that hand to grab both of her arms and hold them behind her back. "Good, now move."

"Are you alright?" Chase asked Cameron.

She nodded as they began to turn back and head for the exit once again.

Grissom and Sara walked in front with Chase just behind them, followed by the Wraith who propelled Cameron in front of him. As the walked, Sara caught Grissom's eye and signaled that she had a second weapon hidden under her vest. Grissom slightly shook his head to indicate that now was not the time.

"What do you plan on doing once you're out in our world?" Grissom asked over his shoulder.

"Finding a new place to hide while I silently feed off of your lowlife. We were doing quite well for ourselves down here, but now, it seems it might be better if we split up. It was hard for Michael to find food enough for all of us."

"All of you?" Chase said. "How many?"

"Four in all. Nothing compared to our colonies back home, but since we are now outcasts, we must learn to live as such."

"Outcasts? What could a Wraith do to get exiled?" Sara asked.

"It's not what we did, it's what the Atlantians did," he snarled. "They turned us into humans, weakened us, took away our heritage. The others were so repulsed by us that they tried to destroy us. They believe us to have been weakened by our transformation and see us as a threat to their way of life. Really, all we want is to join them once again, but that is no longer possible."

"So you came to Earth? Why here?" Grissom asked.

Here the Wraith began to laugh. "Our foolish kin have set their sights on this land since they learned that it was such an abundant feeding ground. The ironic part is, they still don't know where Earth is and those who they have exiled have found it."

They were getting nearer to the exit and Grissom nodded slightly to Sara to draw her gun. She wrapped her fingers around it and held it in ready to use. She was still trying to figure out how she could shoot the Wraith without hitting Chase or Cameron who were between her and it.

Finally, they paused at a metal ladder going up to a hole of bright light in the ceiling.

"Stop," the Wraith commanded.

Grissom and Sara gave a slight nod to one another.

"You will go up first. Make sure there is no one there and then I will send up the girl."

"And leave her down here with you alone?" Chase asked.

"You don't have much of a choice."

"NOW!" Grissom signaled as he spun around, grabbing Chase and pulling him out of the way.

Cameron, who had expected something, stomped down as hard as she could with her high heel on the Wraith's foot and she bent over at the waist as the grip on her throat loosened from the sudden pain she sent the Wraith.

Sara spun around, gun drawn and saw as her line of fire cleared. She quickly took aim and fired. The Wraith screamed as her first two shots hit it in the chest and then neck and finally the third went right through the center of its forehead.

The noise it was making stopped suddenly as it stiffened and then fell to the floor, the last of its grip releasing Cameron.

Grissom let go of Chase as he pushed off of the wall and grabbed an unsteady and shaking Cameron. Sara still had her gun drawn and aimed at the unmoving body of the Wraith as she cautiously approached it. Grissom joined her at the body. They turned the creature over and saw that it was not breathing and its eyes were staring lifelessly up at them as they glassed over.

Slowly she lowered her gun as Grissom placed an arm around her shoulders and held her as she regained her nerve.

Cameron was the first to break the silence, "Oh my God," she whispered. "There's still more that the others don't know about."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Greg slowly came to as he began to sense a presence drawing near. He opened his eyes only a slit as he heard the heavy breathing of an unidentified person hovering beside him. What he saw brought him fully to consciousness.

A Wraith, bleeding from many bullet wounds, was beside him, apparently attempting to determine if he was still alive and so able to be fed off of. Letting our a slight cry of alarm, Greg jerked back from the Wraith and rolled away, just being missed by the Wraith's hand.

"So, you are still alive," it said to him with a hungry look. But then they both heard the approach of feet as Daniel was heard calling, "Greg?"

Suddenly straightening, the Wraith glanced in the direction of the sounds and turned and vanished in the other direction with a hiss of annoyance. "Greg," Carter said, somewhat relieved when she saw the wide eyed CSI sitting on the ground, apparently unharmed.

Shaking off his moment of fear, he suddenly could feel the pounding headache that his hit against the wall had given him. Reaching a hand to touch the back of his head Sam approached him and asked, "Are you alright? We heard you yell."

"Yeah, I think I'm fine. It was the Wraith. It was about to get me when it heard you guys and ran for it." He ended his statement with a gasp of pain when he quickly pulled his hand away, allowing everyone to see that his fingers were now tinged with blood.

"You're bleeding," Sam said, unnecessarily.

House rolled his eyes and limped over to where Greg sat. "I suppose since I'm the doctor here, I'm going to have to take care of him."

"That would be your profession," Daniel pointed out, wondering why House seemed to reluctant to be a doctor. Every medical person that he had ever encountered couldn't have been held back when someone was in need of attention. But then he noticed for the first time that House wasn't looking so good himself.

"House, are you alright?" Daniel asked worriedly.

"Nothing my cane and some vicodin couldn't cure," he grumbled back as he looked down at the back of Greg's head and rolled his eyes again. He was going to have to knell down to get a good look at it. Ungracefully, House lowered himself to the floor with the right leg sticking out at an angle.

After the fresh wave of pain passed, he continued to say, "But since I have neither, I guess I'll just have to be alright till I can get them."

Greg gasped again as House probed the bloody wound. "Don't suppose you military types have some type of medical kit?" he asked.

"Yeah, here," Sam said as she fished out he Med kit.

"You're gonna need a few stitches and a lot of observation. I'm pretty sure you're concussed," House informed Greg as he pulled out the emergency needle and threat as well as some disinfectant and bandages.

"Great," Greg responded grumpily.

Sam watched for a moment before turning to Daniel, "I'm going to leave you with them. As soon as House has finished stitching Greg up, I want you to get them out of here. Make sure you find the other four are all right too. Then radio us and find out what our position is. We may or may not need you at that point."

"Ok," Daniel said. As Sam began to leave, Daniel said to her, "Sam, be careful,"

Nodding to him, she turned and followed after the Wraith.


	20. Another one Bites the Dust

A/N: Alright, My profound apologies for leaving this so long. Literally years, I know. And I have had this finished for almost a year now and sent it to my beta and never even realized that it hadn't come back. So, here it is, the ending (unbetaed… sorry).Another one Bites the Dust Chapter 20

"What do you think, split up?" Shepherd asked O'Neill as he passed the General one of his weapons.

"All the people down here and we wind up going solo."

"That's how it goes, isn't it?" Shepherd said with a smile as he continued on in the direction Michael should be.

"I suppose you're right," O'Neill answered as he turned and went the other way. "Just," he said over his shoulder, "Be careful huh?"

"Hey, I know this one."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Rose was becoming nervous as she watched the Doctor pull away from them. He was recklessly striding ahead and walking right up to any number of corners that could have a hidden Wraith behind them. But that wasn't entirely out of character for him. What was making her nervous was how antsy he was. He was moving fast in erratic bursts almost as if he needed to have some outlet for too much energy. He was constantly flexing his hands and glancing from side to side so quickly she was afraid he was going to get whiplash.

"Is that normal for him?" Beckett asked in her ear, startling her.

She shook her head, "No. He's not usually so… energetic. Is that the drug?"

"Aye," Beckett confirmed. "I don't like this. He could really be putting us in more danger than helping by staying down here. His judgment could be severely impaired at this point."

Foreman came up along side them then and said, "Should we really have him leading us then?"

Beckett shrugged and said, "We need to get him out of here soon. I hope that the others find and get those three before we have to face them."

Suddenly Teal'c stopped and called out softly, "Doctor!"

The Doctor spun around on his heel and looked back. He was just about to hurry back to his group when suddenly a hand grabbed his arm and threw him against the tunnel wall. Teal'c brought his staff weapon to aim and fired at the place where the hand had been, but Wraith had already moved. He was across the tunnel and made to grab the Doctor as he went.

Shaking his head to clear it after the knock against the wall, the Doctor shrugged out of the Wraith's grip and grabbed it in return. "Not so fast, Michael," he said as he pulled its arm behind its back.

Michael hissed and spun around, facing the Doctor who still had his arm. He reached out to grab him but the Doctor shoved him away forcefully, causing him to knock his head against the wall this time.

"Doctor!" Teal'c called, pulling out a zat. "Move aside."

But the Doctor didn't listen. He glared at Michael and rushed at him, knocking him into the wall again. Michael reached up and wrapped his hands around the Doctor's throat and the Doctor continued to shove him into the wall.

With force, Michael shoved them both away from the wall, sending them rolling onto the damp floor of the tunnel.

"Doctor!" Rose called as she caught a glimpse of his face. He was enraged more than she had ever seen him, even more than when he was about to kill the Dalek.

"I warned him on this," Beckett muttered before turning to Teal'c. "We have to do something!"

Teal'c dropped his staff weapon and ran into the fray. He tried to grab Michael away from the Doctor, but Michael swung his arm out, knocking Teal'c back down the tunnel. He didn't stay down long before he was up and inserting himself in the fight again.

Just before he reached them though, something clattered from the next tunnel onto the floor where the Doctor and Michael were still fighting. There was a soft hiss and the tunnel began to fill with thick red smoke.

Teal'c backed away from it at first, but as he caught sight of Shepherd running into the smoke, he followed. Rose held her breath as the noise of the fight continued uninterrupted for a moment. Suddenly there was a sound of a gunshot, followed by a howl of rage and pain.

"Doctor!" Rose called out, but there was no answer.

The smoke began to dissipate as it brought tears to their eyes. Beckett, Foreman, and her were finally able to see what happened. Shepherd was still standing over Michael, gun aimed at his head. He had a bleeding wound in his chest. Teal'c was picking the Doctor up from where he was slumped against the wall.

Rose ran over to them, followed closely by Beckett and Foreman. "What happened?" they all asked in unison.

"Colonel Shepherd shot Michael point blank just as the Doctor lost consciousness. I believe it was the enzyme and not the fight that caused it," Teal'c explained.

"We have to get him to Atlantis!" Rose exclaimed.

"Aye, but only he is going to be able to do that with whatever ship he was talking about. Unless you can fly it, that is," Beckett said.

Rose bit her lip and shook her head as Foreman said, "There has to be something that we can do."

Just then the Doctor stirred and groaned. "Doctor!" Rose called. "We need to get you to Atlantis. Can you fly the TARDIS?"

He blinked at her and then nodded. Teal'c lowered him and let him take a few steps before he began to stagger. Foreman wrapped his arm around him and steadied him as Rose moved to his other side. "You guys get going," Shepherd said, still covering Michael. The Wraith was breathing heavily and looking more and more faint with each moment. "Teal'c and I will take care of him."

"Colonel, be careful," Beckett warned.

Teal'c radioed O'Neill in the background to tell him that they had apprehended Michael.

Shepherd nodded in return before reaching down and grabbing Michael, hauling him to his feet while keeping the gun to his head. "I should just kill you now. But I think there are going to be plenty of questions about how you got here and what you have been up to," he said to him.

"You're right," Michael said between breaths. "You should kill me now."

Teal'c grabbed him then and began to force him down the tunnel, Shepherd's gun never leaving his temple.

XXXXXXXX

"We can't just leave without letting the others know that there are more down here," Cameron argued as Chase tried to convince her that they should just leave while they still could.

"Dr. Cameron is right," Grissom said. "But it's not up to you two to do it. We're technically a part of the SGC. Sara and I will go back. You two should go."

"But…" Cameron began to argue.

"He's right Cameron," Sara said. "We'll just deliver the message and be right behind you. Don't worry," she smiled encouragingly at Cameron and then nodded to Chase. Chase nodded back and took Cameron by the arm. He practically dragged her back to the ladder before she finally gave in and went up it. Chase followed close behind her.

"Well, shall we?" Sara asked Grissom as they lost sight of the two doctors.

He nodded and turned in silence to go back the way they had come. But they hadn't got very far before they practically ran into Daniel. "Whoa!" he cried as he threw up his hands, stopping just short of Grissom. "Why aren't you guys out of here yet?" he asked.

"We came across another Wraith," Sara explained quickly. "We took care of it but we were coming to tell you there are more."

"Yeah, we already know. One nearly got Greg but we chased it off. I guess Teal'c and the Doctor got another and Shepherd just got Michael. Jack and Sam are cornering the last one right now."

"Greg," Grissom said over Daniel's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"I've been worse," he answered.

House limped up behind him and rolled his eyes, "He'll live. Now let's stop all the pointless yakking and get out of here!"

Sara and Grissom shared a shrug before turning back and heading out. The others were close behind with House slowly bringing up the rear.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Carter and McKay came to a deviation in the tunnels. "Alright, McKay," Carter said. "You take that one, I'll go this way."

He stared at her in unbelief as he said, "Shouldn't we stay together?"

"Ordinarily, yes. But right now it's just you and me on this end. The General is making sure that his route is covered, but we need to made sure it doesn't get away."

McKay darted his eyes between the tunnel he was supposed to go down and Sam for a moment before he said very unconfidently, "Alright. I guess you're right."

He took a few unsteady steps his direction before he turned and said, "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes. McKay, you'll be fine. It's already wounded and weakened. If you see it, radio me and I'll be right there."

McKay shook his head, but did as he was told.

Carter hadn't gone too much further before she nearly tripped over the Wraith as she stalked the tunnels. It was fallen, prone on the ground. She realized that the shots it had sustained must have finally overcome it. As she bent down to check it, it suddenly lurched and grabbed her by the throat.

It knocked her gun away with it's other hand and then made for her chest with it. She grabbed the hand and tried to hold it back, but it was far stronger than her. Just as it was about to grab her, three shots rang out causing its body to jerk with each one. The last caused the hands to loosen and slip from Carter. She backed away quickly as it fell to the floor.

She looked across from where the wraith had been; O'Neill was still aiming a gun at it. "You all right Carter?" he asked as he approached the Wraith.

"Yes. Thank you sir."

He nudged it with his toe. His last shot had been square in the back of the head.

"Is it dead?" she asked,

He nodded. "I think so."

She took a breath before saying, "Good to see you again sir."

"And you," he answered. "Now, let's get out of here."

Suddenly McKay came running up and took in the situation, "What'd I miss?" he asked.

They both rolled their eyes at him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

It seemed fairly quickly that the whole group, minus Beckett, Foreman, Rose, and the Doctor, as well as Teal'c and Shepherd, all gathered in the hotel lobby. "What just happened?" Cameron said as she looked around at their group.

"That?" O'Neill smiled. "Just another day at the office."

"Interesting job you have," Chase said.

"It has its moment's," Daniel answered.

"And I hope that I never have to run across any of you ever again," House grumbled as he popped yet another Vicodin.

"We really can't thank all of you enough for your help," Carter told the doctors and CSI's.

"It seems that you keep making friends," Grissom replied, indicating the doctors.

"Don't expect a Christmas card," House said. "And what did you do with my other minion?"

"Foreman went with Beckett and Rose to take care of the Doctor at Atlantis," Carter explained.

"Atlantis?" Cameron said.

"As in the lost city of?" Chase asked.

They all exchanged a look before Daniel said, "Sort of. It's just in another galaxy."

"I don't think I wanted to know that," Cameron said.

House rolled his eyes and said, "There he goes again, messing up my day even more. He better have Foreman back in time for tomorrow's lectures."

Cameron couldn't help but smile at her grump of a boss.

"Well, we should get going," O'Neill said. "Shepherd and Teal'c should be just about back to the SGC with Michael by now. I should be there to make sure that he doesn't escape again before we can get him back on board the Daedelus and back to Atlantis."

"It won't be here for a few days yet," McKay said. "Does that mean that I get some time off?"

Carter rolled her eyes at him as O'Neill said, "We'll talk about this later."

"What?" he asked

"Thank you again for your help and I shouldn't have to tell you that none of this really happened," O'Neill said.

"No, I suppose not," Chase answered.

"We'll see you later, General," Grissom said.

They all said goodbye, except House, and then SG-1 left. Grissom stood then and said, "Well, Sara and I should get Greg to the hospital where they can keep an eye on him."

"I'm fine," he argued.

"No, that was a pretty good hit you took," Cameron said. "Grissom is right."

Greg shrugged but stood up a little wobbly next to Grissom. Sara was already standing and waiting to go. "Doctor House," Greg said.

He half looked up at Greg, "Thanks for stitching me up. And thanks to all of you for the help. I know that it's always a bit much that first time."

"And I hope it's the last," House said as he used his cane to stand again. "I'm going to go to my room now that you guys finally have allowed us into that hallway."

With that he stalked away, leaving Chase and Cameron to say the final goodbyes.


	21. Epilog

Epilog

"Don't you think that we should go and thank House and the rest of his team?" Rose asked as they got back into the TARDIS after dropping Foreman off.

"I think that House would rather we didn't. I'm sure that he has had enough of us."

"I'm just glad we got you to Atlantis in time," she said with a sigh.

"You know me, indestructible." He said with a manic grin as he began to punch at the controls again. "So, where to now?"

"How about home? I'd like to pop in on my mum for a few, yeah?"

"Oh how domestic," he said with a roll of his eyes but he obliged and set the coordinates for the Powel estates. Of course whether or not that's where they would wind up was still debatable.

XXXXXXXXXX

"What do you mean, he escaped!" O'Neill yelled at the TV screen with Weir on it.

"The Daedelus brought Michael back to the Pegasus Galaxy, but somehow he got away in his transfer to Atlantis," she explained. "Shepherd and Ronin are trying to track him now."

"At least he's back in the right galaxy," Daniel said.

"But he's still at large and we still don't know how he is managing to make his escapes," Carter said.

Weir shook her head and said, "I know. I'm sorry and we're doing everything we can to get him back. But Daniel is right. At least he's not a danger to Earth anymore."

"Well there is that," O'Neill said. "But tell Shepherd that he doesn't get to come home until he has him again. Got it?"

Weir smiled at the empty threat and said, "Will do General. Atlantis out."


End file.
